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Blackie,  John  Stuart,  1809- 

1895. 
The  natural  history  of 

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THE    NATURAL    HISTORY 
OF   ATHEISM. 


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THE    NATURAL   HISTORY 
OF   ATHEISM 


MAR  19  19] 

JOHN    STUART    BLACKIE 

PROFESSOR  OF  GREEK  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  EDINBURGH 


"Mala  et  impia  est  consuetude  contra  deos  disputandi,  sive  ex  aniino  id  fit, 
sive  simulate." — Cicero. 


NEW    YORK 
SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG   &   COMPANY 

1878 


Trow's 
pwnting  and  bookbinding  gck» 


CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGB 

I.  Presumptions i 

II.  Theism,  its  Reasonable  Ground        .         .26 

III.  Atheism,  its  Varieties  and  Common  Root  .     37 

IV.  Polytheism 72 

V.  Buddhism no 

VI.  The  Atheism  of  Reaction  ;  Modern  Eng- 
lish Atheists  and  Agnostics  ;  Martineau 
and  Tyndall 181 


CHAPTER   I. 


PRESUMPTIONS. 


TloivTes  re  6ewv  xareoiKr*  &v9p(i>iroi' 

Hesiod. 
Tiuos  yh,p  &\Xov   ^wov   ^vxh    deuu   rSov  rh.  {x4yi0ra  koL    KaWicrra 
avvTa^avTuiv  fl(Tdr}Tai  on  flat;    ri  5€  (pvKov  &KX01  ^  &vdpuTroi  Oeovs 
Bepairevovcri. 

Socrates. 


I  REMEMBER  well,  when  I  was  passing  from 
boyhood  into  youth,  some  fifty  years  ago, 
shortly  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  there  was  a 
general  conviction  in  the  public  mind — at  least  in 
that  large  section  of  the  public  which  is  more 
mightily  stirred  by  the  present  than  taught  by  the 
past — that  after  so  many  years'  wild  turmoil  of 
guns  and  bayonets,  there  was  now  an  end  forever 
of  that  culmination  of  sanguinary  horror  called 
War  ;  and  I  remember  no  less  distinctly  how  when, 
a  few  years  afterwards,  by  the  advice  of  a  stout  old 
doctor  of  divinity  in  Marischal  College,  Aberdeen, 


2       The  Nattiral  History  of  Atheism, 

I  waded  my  way  through  that  most  interesting  of 
all  ancient  theological  treatises,  "  Cicero  de  Natura 
Deorum,"  and  had  finished  the  perusal  with  the 
abiding  belief  that  that  culmination  of  all  specula- 
tive absurdities  called  Atheism  was  a  thing  of  the 
past,  and  could  no  more  reappear  on  the  stage  of 
credible  things  than  those  old  women  suspected 
of  holding  communion  with  the  Evil  One,  who,  not 
more  than  two  hundred  years  ago,  used  to  be  flung 
into  the  milldam,  to  the  effect  that,  if  they  were 
not  witches  they  might  sink,  and  if  they  were 
witches  they  might  float  and  be  burnt.  But  I  have 
lived  long  enough  now  to  understand  that  both 
these  anticipations  were  premature.  As  for  war,  I 
have  long  since  made  up  my  mind  that  it  is  not 
only  a  theatre  of  horrors,  but  a  school  of  virtue  ; 
and  that  in  a  rich  and  various  world,  crowded  with 
antagonistic  tendencies  and  contrary  interests,  hos- 
tile coUisions  of  various  kinds  must  take  place;  and 
the  only  thing  to  be  done  with  war,  by  sensible 
men,  is  not  to  dream  it  out  of  the  world,  but,  while 
we  are  never  eager  for  it,  to  be  always  ready,  and, 
when  we  are  in  the  heat  of  the  strife,  to  fight  like 
men,  and  not  like  tigers.  As  for  Atheism,  again, 
I  have  learnt  equally,  by  the  consideration  of  cer- 
tain recent  phases  of  thought,  taken  along  with  the 


Presumptions,  3 

general  history  of  human  speculation,  that  it  is  a 
disease  of  the  speculative  faculty  which  must  be 
expected  to  reappear  from  time  to  time,  when  men 
are  shaken  out  of  the  firm  forms  of  their  old  beliefs, 
and  have  not  yet  had  time  to  work  themselves  into 
the  well-defined  mould  of  a  new  one.  It  indicates, 
in  fact,  a  chaotic  state  of  mind  analogous  to  that 
physical  chaos  which  makes  its  epiphany  betwixt 
the  destruction  of  an  old  world  and  the  creation 
of  a  new. 

What  is  Atheism  ?  As  a  theory,  with  regard  to 
the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  universe,  the 
word  means  either  that  the  mighty  something,  the 
TO  irav,  the  all,  was  produced  out  of  nothing,  no- 
body knows  how,  and  goes  on  producing  itself  into 
something,  nobody  knows  how  ;  or  that  it  has  ex- 
isted forever,  and  will  exist  forever,  as  a  mighty 
confused  complex  of  something  that  acts,  called 
force,  and  something  that  is  acted  on,  called  matter  ; 
but  it  takes  its  shape  from  no  intelligent  or  design- 
ing cause,  merely  from  blind  chance ;  or  at  least 
that  it  is  a  self-existent  combination  of  forces  and 
the  results  of  forces,  of  which,  in  their  unity,  no 
inteUigible  account  can  be  given. 

Now  the  first  observation  that  occurs  to  one  on 
this  view  of  the  constitution  of  this  wonderful  struc- 


4        The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

ture  of  things  called  the  world,  is,  that  on  the  broad 
view  of  the  ages  and  cycles  of  human  speculation  it 
is  a  strikingly  exceptive,  abnormal,  and  monstrous 
type  of  reasonable  thought.  It  seems,  on  the  first 
blush  of  the  matter,  to  bear  somewhat  the  same 
proportion  to  the  general  current  of  human  think- 
ing that  dypsomania  and  other  odd  conditions  of 
morbid  sensibility  do  to  the  normal  state  of  the 
human  nerves.  Or,  to  take  another  simile:  the 
general  aspect  of  the  fields  and  the  forests  and  the 
face  of  the  earth,  except  in  the  desert  of  Sahara,  is 
green  ;  but  sometimes,  wandering  in  the  depths  of 
the  leafy  dells,  or  through  the  luxuriant  beds  of 
artificial  gardens,  we  stumble  on  a  single  plant 
whose  leaves  are  red,  while  all  its  congeners  are 
of  the  normal  green.  This  peculiar  hue,  though  it 
have  a  certain  novel  attraction  about  it,  is  in  fact  a 
disease,  and  will  not  be  looked  on  with  favour  by 
any  gardener.  Such  exactly  seems  to  be  the  case 
with  Atheism.  It  is  a  doctrine  so  averse  from  the 
general  current  of  human  sentiment,  that  the  unso- 
phisticated mass  of  mankind  instinctively  turn  away 
from  it,  as  the  other  foxes  did  from  that  vulpine 
brother  who,  having  lost  his  tail  in  a  trap,  tried  to 
convince  the  whole  world  of  foxes  that  the  bushy 
appendage  in  the  posterior  region  was  a  deformity 


Presumptions,  5 

of  which  all  high-minded  members  of  the  vulpine 
aristocracy  should  get  rid  as  soon  as  possible.  In 
common  times  and  under  normal  circumstances, 
men  are  not  disposed  to  accept  Atheism,  in  any 
shape,  as  having  any  positive  value.  It  is  simply 
a  defect  in  the  reason,  as  much  as  the  want  of  an 
eyeball  in  what  looks  like  an  eye,  or  the  want  of  a 
beard  in  what  looks  like  a  man.  Men  without 
beards,  or  women  with  them,  will  justly  not  be 
taken  account  of  in  the  general  estimate  of  the 
sexes. 

The  fact  is,  as  Socrates  says  in  the  ' '  Memorabilia," 
man  is  naturally  and  differentially  a  religious  ani- 
mal, and  is  not  thoroughly  or  normally  himself, 
unless  when  he  is  so.  It  has  been  so  much  the 
fashion  lately  to  hunt  out  and  to  parade  points  of 
identity  between  man  and  the  lower  animals,  that  it 
may  be  a  service  to  sound  reason  just  to  state  the 
immense  gap  that  exist  betwixt  the  strange  un- 
feathered  biped  called  man  and  our  first  cousin  the 
ape,  if  Dr.  Darwin  and  Mr.  Huxley  will  have  it  so. 
What  monkey  ever  wrote  an  epic  poem,  or  composed 
a  tragedy  or  a  comedy,  or  even  a  sonnet  ?  What 
monkey  professed  his  belief  in  any  thirty-nine 
articles,  or  well-compacted  Calvinistic  confession,  or 
gave  in  his  adhesion  to  any  Church,  established  or 


6        The  Nattiral  History  of  Atheism. 

disestablished  ?  Did  any  monkey  ever  smile  or 
laugh  (for  a  grin  is  not  a  laugh),  or  sing,  or  give 
the  slightest  indication  of  knowing  even  the  most 
elementary  propositions  in  the  first  six  books  of 
Euclid,  such  as  are  easily  crammed  into  the  head 
of  the  dullest  undergraduate  of  the  term  ?  Plainly 
not.  And  though  men  in  Egypt,  for  some  sym- 
bohcal  reason  that  may  not  have  been  so  foolish 
as  we  imagine,  paid  certain  sacrosanct  attentions 
and  pious  ministrations  to  crocodiles,  there  is  no 
proof  that  crocodiles  or  monkeys,  or  any  other  of 
the  lower  animals,  ever  worshipped  anybody.  Dogs 
worship  men,  you  will  say.  Yes,  but  only  in  a 
fashion.  Dogs  have  neither  churches  nor  creeds  ; 
and  as  the  god  whom  they  worship  is  the  man  who 
visibly  feeds  them  and  tangibly  flogs  them,  it  is  a 
very  cheap  sort  of  religion.  Socrates  was  certainly 
right  in  this  matter,  rather  than  Darwin.  He  saw 
as  great  a  gap  betwixt  man  and  the  lower  animals 
in  the  descending  scale,  as  betwixt  men  and  the 
gods  in  the  ascending  scale  ;  and  he  recognised  the 
peculiar  differential  excellence  of  the  human  species 
simply  in  this,  that  they  could  recognise  the  gods, 
and  give  evidence  of  the  recognition  by  the  reveren- 
tial observances  of  what  we  call  a  religion.  Surely 
this  was  a  much  more  human,  more  normal,  and 


Pres7i7nptzons.  y 

more   noble  way  of   philosophizing  than  to  take 
infinite  pains,  as  some  of  our  modern  scientific  men 
do,  on  the  one  hand,  to  restore  our  lost  brotherhood 
with  the  baboon,  and,  on  the  other,  to  raise  up  an 
impassable  wall  of  partition  between  all  reasonable 
creatures  and  the  Supreme  Reason  from  whom  all 
creatures  flow.     We  miscalculate  very  much  indeed 
if    we   imagine   that   the   peculiar    doctrines    and 
favourite  fancies  of  a  few  cultivators  of  physical 
science  in  this  small  corner  of  the  world,  and  in  this 
small  half  of  a  century,  are  likely  to  exercise  any 
notable  influence  over  the  thoughts  of  men,  after 
the  one-sided  impulse  out  of  which  they  arose  shall 
have  spent  its  force.     Not  only  all  the  unsophisti- 
cated masses  of  men,  but  all  the  great  originators  of 
philosophic  schools  and  the  founders  of  churches, 
have  been  theists.     Moses,  David,  and  Solomon  ; 
Pythagoras,  and  Anaxagoras  ;  Socrates,  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, and  Zeno  ;  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter  ;  Mahomet, 
St.    Bernard,    Thomas   Aquinas,    Dante,    Kepler, 
Copernicus,  Shakespeare,  Luther,  Spinoza,  Bacon, 
Leibnitz,  Newton,  Locke,  Des  Cartes,  Kant,  Hegel. 
Against  such  an  array  of  great  witnesses  of  sound 
human  reason,  it  is  only  the  narrowness  of  local 
conceit,  or  the  madness  of  partisanship,  that  could 
plant  such  names  as  David  Hume  (if  David  Hume 


8        The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

did  indeed  believe  in  his  own  bepuzzlements), 
Jeremy  Bentham,  and  John  Stuart  Mill.  As  for 
Confucius  and  Buddha,  the  two  great  prophets  of 
the  far  East,  who  certainly  embrace  a  much  wider 
sphere  of  human  discipleship  than  any  of  our  Eng- 
lish sophists  of  the  negative  school,  they  lie  out- 
side of  our  Western  European  culture  altogether ; 
but  in  so  far  as  they  seem  to  have  taught  a  morality 
without  religion,  or  a  religion  without  God,  we  shall 
say  a  word  or  two  about  them  by-and-by. 

That  the  general  consent  of  the  most  cultivated 
part  of  the  human  race,  taken  in  the  gross,  is  in 
favour  of  theism,  and  against  atheism,  seems,  there- 
fore, as  a  fact,  plain  enough.  But  whether  there 
be  certain  races  of  human  beings,  up  in  the  frozen 
North,  or  down  in  the  fervid  South,  the  tablets  of 
whose  inner  nature,  when  nicely  read,  present  abso- 
lutely no  traces  of  a  recognition  of  a  superior 
world-controlling  power,  this  is  a  question  by  no 
means  easy  in  an  exhaustive  way  to  answer.  One 
of  the  speakers  in  Cicero's  book  above-named, 
starts  precisely  this  question—''  Whence,"  says  he, 
**  do  you— /.^.  the  Stoics,  who  argue  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  human  race — prove  the  opinions  of  all 
nations  ?  I  verily  believe  that  there  are  many  peo- 
ple so  lost  in  savagery  that  they  have  not  even  the 


Presumptions,  9 

slightest  suspicion  of  the  existence  of  gods."*    Here 
are  two  contrary  opinions :    the  one  that  there  is  a 
universal  consent  of  all  men  and  all  peoples  in  the  be- 
lief of  a  Supreme  Being  or  Beings  ;  the  other,  that 
there  are  nations  so  sunk  in  savagery,  that  they  en- 
tertain not  the  remotest  suspicion  of  God  any  more 
than  their  cattle,  their  sheep,  or  their  swine  ;  and  to 
make  these  adverse  notions  more  than  opinions,  to 
turn   them   into   knowledge,   as  Tlato  is  fond  of 
saying,  it  is  manifest  that  what  we  want  is  facts. 
Now  the  facts  in  this  case  are  to  be  sought  in  remote 
and  little  travelled  places,  under  circumstances  not 
without  danger,  and,  what  is  worse,  often  discour- 
aging and  disgusting  to  civiUsed  men.     Who  is  to 
go  and  live  among  wild  men  of  the  woods  and 
roving  Nomads  of  the  waste  for  years,  till  he  has 
thoroughly  mastered  their  language,  and  by  this 
process  acquired  the  key  to  their  notions  and  senti- 
ments and  convictions  about  whatever  lies  behind 
and  above  and  within  that  wonderful  evolution  of 
beauty  and  grandeur  and  power,  which  we  call  the 
world  ?    We  naturally  look  to  Christian  missionaries 
here  in  the  first  place.     They  alone,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  seem  to  possess  the  earnestness  of  pur- 

*  "  De  Natura  Deorum,"  i.  23. 
I*. 


lo     The  Natttral  History  of  Atheism. 

pose,  the  single-hearted  devotedness,  and  the  in- 
tensity  of  moral   apostleship,    which    could    lead 
civilised  men  to  make  a  moral  experiment  of  this 
kind.     But  even  their  evidence  in  such  a  matter 
must  be  looked  on  with  caution,  and  sifted  with 
care.     An  intense  zeal— without  which  a  missionary 
would  be  nothing — so  far  from  implying  an  impar- 
tial judgment  in  all   moral   and  religious  matters, 
not  seldom  renders   such   a  judgment  impossible. 
We    may   say   generally,    indeed,    that   a   zealous 
Christian  missionary  is  not  the  man  fully  to  appre- 
ciate the  amount  of  genuine  theistic  piety  that  may 
lie  hidden  and  half  choked  beneath  the  grotesque 
mummeries  and  disgusting   practices   that  are   all 
that  certain  low  types  of  humanity  have  to  show 
for   religion.     It   is   not   at   all   uncommon,    even 
among  ourselves,  to  hear  persons  and  parties  brand- 
ed as  atheistical,  only  because  the  individuals  who 
so  stigmatize   them  have   not  been  able,  and,  per- 
haps, are  not  in  the  least  willing,  to  appreciate  the 
sort  of  theism  which  they  profess.     If  Spinoza  has 
been  called  an  atheist,  though  he  did  not  deny  God, 
but  rather  denied  the  worid,  and  was,  therefore,  as 
Hegel  says,  more  properiy  styled  an  acosmist ;  how 
much  more    may  many  savage   tribes  have  been 
termed  atheistical  by  ignorant  and  unthinking  mis- 


Presumptions.  1 1 

sionaries  who  failed  to  make  the  very  obvious  dis- 
tinction between  worshipping  gods  who  are  no 
gods,  and  worshipping  no  god  at  all  ?  With  this 
caution,  therefore,  let  us  hear  what  the  most  intelli- 
gent of  the  missionaries  have  to  say  ;  and  in  such  a 
case  there  are  few  men  who  have  a  better  right  to 
be  called  into  court  than  the  noble  apostle  of  South 
Africa,  Dr.  Moffat.  Here  is  a  well-known  passage 
about  the  African  Bushmen  : — "  Hard  is  the  Bush- 
man's lot — friendless,  forsaken,  an  outcast  from  the 
world  ;  greatly  preferring  the  company  of  the  beasts 
of  prey  to  that  of  civiHsed  man.  His  gorah  *  soothes 
some  solitary  hours,  although  its  sounds  are  often 
responded  to  by  the  Hon's  roar  or  the  hyena's  howl. 
He  knows  no  God,  knows  nothing  of  eternity,  yet 
dreads  death,  and  has  no  shrine  at  which  to  leave 
his  care  and  sorrows.  We  can  scarcely  conceive  of 
human  beings  descending  lower  in  the  scale  of 
ignorance  and  vice,  while  yet  there  can  be  no 
question  that  they  are  children  of  one  common 
parent  with  ourselves.  "  f    And  to  the  same  effect  is 

*  "The  gorah  is  an  instrument  something  like  the  bow  of  a 
violin — rather  more  curved — along  which  is  stretched  a  catgut,  to 
which  is  attached  a  small  piece  of  quill.  The  player  takes  the 
quill  in  his  mouth,  and  by  strong  inspirations  and  respirations  pro- 
duces a  few  soft  notes  in  the  vibrations  of  the  catgut." 

f  '<  Missionary  Labours  and  Scenes  in  South  Africa,"  Thirtieth 
thousand,  p.  15. 


12      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

the  distinct  testimony  of  Dr.  Monat  in  reference  to 
the  Andaman  islanders  : — "  They  have  no  concep- 
tion of  a  Supreme  Being.  They  have  never  risen 
from  the  effects  they  see  around  them,  even  to  the 
most  imperfect  notion  of  a  cause.  They  have  never 
ascended  in  thought  from  the  works  to  a  Creator,  or 
even  to  many  Creators — that  is  to  say,  Polythe- 
ism." *  And  one  of  the  most  eminent  investigators 
into  the  primitive  condition  of  man  has  the  follow- 
ing interesting  passage  : — "  The  opinion  that  relig- 
ion is  general  and  universal  has  been  entertained  by 
many  high  authorities.  Yet  it  is  opposed  to  the  evi- 
dence of  numerous  trustworthy  observers.  Sailors, 
traders,  and  philosophers,  Roman  Catholic  priests 
and  Protestant  missionaries,  in  ancient  and  in  mod- 
ern times,  in  every  part  of  the  globe,  have  concurred 
in  stating  that  there  are  races  of  men  altogether  de- 
void of  religion.  The  case  is  the  stronger  because 
in  several  instances  the  fact  has  greatly  surprised 
him  who  records  it,  and  has  been  entirely  in  opposi- 
tion to  all  his  preconceived  views.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  must  be  confessed  that  in  some  cases 
travellers  denied  the  existence  of  religion  merely 
because  the  tenets  were  unlike  ours.    The  question 

*   *'  Adventures  and  Researches  among  the  Andaman  Islanders." 
By  Frederick  T.  Monat,  M.D.,F.R.C.S.   London.  1S63.    P.  303. 


Presumptio7is,  1 3 

as  to.  the  general  existence  of  religion  among  men 
is  indeed  to  a  great  extent  a  matter  of  definition. 
If  the  mere  sensation  of  fear,  and  the  recognition 
that  there  are  probably  other  beings  more  power- 
ful than  one's  self,  are  sufficient  alone  to  constitute 
a  religion,  then  we  must,  I  think,  admit  that  reli- 
gion is  general  to  the  human  race.  But  when  a 
child  dreads  the  darkness,  or  shrinks  from  a  light- 
less  room,  we  never  regard  that  as  an  evidence  of 
religion.  Moreover,  if  this  definition  be  adopted, 
we  cannot  longer  regard  religion  as  peculiar  to 
man.  We  must  admit  that  the  feeling  of  a  dog  or 
a  horse  towards  his  master  is  of  the  same  charac- 
ter ;  and  the  baying  of  a  dog  to  the  moon  is  as 
much  an  act  of  worship  as  some  ceremonies  which 
have  been  so  described  by  travellers."  * 

But  strong  as  these  testimonies  appear,  it  is  ex- 
tremely doubtful  how  far  they  would  satisfy  an  im- 
partial jury  impannelled  to  try  the  point  we  are 
now  discussing.  Certainly  if  anthropological  ques- 
tions of  this  kind  are  to  be  decided  on  the  same 
strictness  of  detailed  testimony  that  pecuniary 
cases  are  decided  in  our  law  courts,  the  three  testi- 
monies  here   given,    notwithstanding   the    weight 

*  "  Origin  of  Civilisation  and  Primitive  Condition  of  Man."  By 
Sir  T.  Lubbock.     Pp.  138—9. 


14      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

justly  attributable  to  the  words  of  the  writers, 
would  require  to  be  submitted  to  the  most  sifting 
cross-examination  before  they  could  be  accepted  as 
elements  in  the  formation  of  any  conclusive  verdict 
on  the  subject.  And  accordingly  we  find  that 
another  writer  of  equal  authority,  after  quoting 
various  testimonies  in  favour  of  the  existence  of 
atheistic  races,  nevertheless  declares  his  opinion 
that  no  evidence  sufficiently  detailed  and  searching 
has  been  brought  forward,  such  as  might  enable  a 
cautious  thinker  to  assert  with  confidence  that 
there  exists  anywhere  a  race  of  human  beings 
absolutely  without  religion  of  any  kind.*  And  our 
great  African  explorer,  Livingstone,  talking  of 
some  of  the  most  degraded  tribes  of  the  Africans 
with  whom  he  came  into  connection,  says,  "  There 
is  no  necessity  for  beginning  to  tell  the  most  de- 
graded of  these  people  (the  Bechuanas)  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  God,  or  of  the  future  state,  the  facts 
being  universally  admitted.  Everything  that  can- 
not be  accounted  for  by  common  causes  is  ascribed 
to  the  Deity — as  creation,  sudden  death,  &c. 
*  How  curiously  God  made  these  things  !  '  is  a 
common  expression,  as  is  *  He  was  not  killed  by 
disease,  he  was  killed  by  God.'     And  while  speak- 

*  Tylor,  "Primitive  Culture,"  vol.  i.  p.  379. 


Presumptions.  1 5 

ing  of  the  departed — though  there  is  nought  In  the 
physical  appearance  of  the  dead  to  justify  the  ex- 
pression— they  say,  *  He  has  gone  to  the  gods,'  the 
phrase  being  identical  with  abiit  ad patres^  * 

This  testimony  is  sufficiently  strong,  but  of 
course  it  is  strong  only  within  the  range  of  per- 
sonal observation  which  it  includes,  and  does  not 
necessarily  contradict  the  assertion  of  Moffat ;  for 
Livingstone,  in  the  very  next  page,  honestly  states 
that  **he  had  not  had  any  intercourse  with  either 
Caffre  or  Bushmen  in  their  own  tongue."  On  the 
whole,  therefore,  so  far  as  our  very  imperfect  evi- 
dence goes,  we  seem  justified  in  concluding  that, 
while  some  sort  of  religion  seems  to  belong  to  man 
as  man,  one  type  of  religion  may  differ  from 
another  as  far  as  lust  differs  from  love,  opinion 
from  knowledge,  or  caricature  from  art.t  And,  if 
there  be  races  of  reasonable  beings  who  have  no 
idea  of  a  cause,  it  is  just  the  same  thing  as  if  we 
were  to  find  in  every  Alpine  valley  whole  races  of 
Cretins,  or  anywhere  in  the  world  whole  races  of 
idiots  ;    they  are    defective   creatures  such  as    no 


*  <t 


Livingstone's  Missionary  Travels,"  chap,  viii,  p.  158. 
f  An  extremely  interesting  account  of  a  very  low  type  of  religion, 
among  the  Ostjaks  of  Asiatic  Russia,  will  be  found   in   Alexander 
Castren's  "  Reise  Erinnerungen,"  Petersburg,  1853,  p.  288. 


1 6      The  Natter al  History  of  Atheism, 

naturalist  would  receive  into  his  normal  descrip- 
tion of  one  of  Nature's  types  ;  such  as  roses,  for 
instance,  without  fragrance,  horses  without  hoofs, 
and  birds  without  wings.  Any  type  of  things,  in- 
deed, as  well  as  man,  may  by  a  combination  of 
untoward  influences,  be  curtailed  and  stunted  into 
any  sort  of  degradation. 

So  much  for  the  facts.  We  return  to  our  original 
assertion,  and  say,  The  great  majority  of  human 
beings  acknowledge  God,  and  the  practical  form 
which  this  acknowledgment  takes  is  called  Relig- 
ion. But  this,  no  doubt,  is  a  very  wide  and  a  very 
vague  word,  and  requires  exposition.  In  the 
main,  however,  its  variations  fall  under  two  heads. 
Either  it  is  a  simple  acknowledgment  of  an  exist- 
ing supreme  authority  in  the  universal  order  of 
things  both  physical  and  moral ;  or  it  contains 
further  a  philosophical  theory  with  regard  to  the 
original  creation  and  the  continued  preservation  of 
the  universe.  Of  these  two  types  of  popular  faith 
the  first  is  certainly  the  more  important,  affecting 
as  it  does  directly  the  conduct  of  human  life,  and 
the  position  of  personal  subordination  and  respon- 
sibility, which  all  faith  in  a  divine  government  im- 
plies ;  but  the  philosophical  element  is  always 
included  in  the  highest  forms  of  religious  belief.    In 


Presumptzo7is,  1 7 

this  respect,  indeed,  religion  is  merely  the  popular 
form  of  metaphysics.  Metaphysics  and  theology, 
in  fact,  in  their  ultimate  issue  are  identical — meta- 
physics being  formally  only  the  more  general  term 
for  the  search  into  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  Be- 
ing, which  search,  in  so  far  as  it  does  not  lose  itself 
in  a  self-puzzling  scepticism,  issues  necessarily  in 
the  assertion  of  the  Eternal  Reason,  or  ^0709, 
which,  in  the  well-known  language  of  the  Apostle 
John,  in  the  opening  words  of  his  Gospel,  is  only 
another  name  for  God. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  in  the  history  of  the  human 
mind  that  the  most  subtle  and  speculative  and  sci- 
entific people  of  the  ancient  world — the  Greeks — ■ 
inherited  a  religion  utterly  destitute  of  this  philo- 
sophical element,  which  is  so  prominent,  not  only  in 
our  Christian  reHgion,  but  in  Brahmanism  and 
other  superior  forms  of  popular  faith.  There  is  not 
in  the  whole  breadth  of  the  Homeric  poems — and 
Homer  was  virtually  the  Greek  Bible — the  slightest 
indication  of  that  great  philosophical  proposition 
which  stands  written  on  the  threshold  of  the  Mosaic 
Scriptures,  ''In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."  The  old  Smyrnean  min- 
strel indicates,  indeed,  in  a  familiar  hne,  that  the 
gods  of  the  Jovian  dynasty  had  a   father  and  a 


1 8      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

mother,    whom   he    distinctly   names    Ocean    and 
Tethys  ;  *  but  this  fragment  of  an  early  theologic 
speculation — for  it  is  nothing  better — bears  on  the 
face  of  it  that  the  existing  gods,  like  the  races  of 
men,  were  born  ;  and  any  religion  in  which  such 
gods  were  supreme  could  not  be  said  to  contain  a 
metaphysics;  for  every  metaphysics  must  ask  not 
only  what  is  behind  the  show,  but  what  is  before 
the  first.     To   say  that  old   Ocean   and  his  briny 
spouse  were  the  father  and  mother  of  the  gods  was 
nothing  more  than  going  another  step  back  in  a 
celestial  genealogy  of  which  the  origin  was  in  the 
dark.     When  you  have  traced  back  a  pensile  chain 
a  thousand  links,  you  are  no  nearer  to  a  philosophy 
than  when  you  started,  unless  you  tell  us  to  what 
the  first  link  is  attached.     The  more  current  notion 
among  the  Greeks  was,  that  the  existing  dynasty 
of  gods  of  whom  Jove  was  chief  was  preceded  by 
two  dynasties— the  first  that  of  Kronos,  whom  the 
Romans    identified  with   Saturn,  and  the   second 
that  of  Uranus   and   Gee,  or  Heaven   and  Earth. 
This   implied,  no  doubt,  a  philosophical   dualism, 
though  in  a  different  style  from  the  dualism  of  the 
Good  and  Evil  principle  in  the  religion  of  the  an- 

*  «'  Ocean  the  father  of  Gods  immortal,  and  Tethys  the  mother." 
—  II.  xiy.  20I. 


Presmnptions.  19 

dent  Persians,  but  still  a  sort  of  philosophy.  But 
whether  we  call  this  sort  of  theistic  duality  a 
philosophy  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  the  theory 
or  the  fancy  was  not  a  living,  effective  element  in 
the  Greek  religion.  It  was  a  sort  of  infantile 
theology,  which  remained  entirely  outside  of  the 
popular  faith  and  the  national  worship  ;  not,  as  in 
the  creed  of  all  Christian  Churches,  where  a  dog- 
matic theology,  or  a  positive  theistic  philosophy, 
constitutes  the  solid  basis  and  the  firm  framework 
of  the  faith  of  the  Church.  Accordingly  we  find 
that  when  the  Boeotian  poet,  Hesiod,  who  lived 
some  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  later  than  Homer, 
ventured  in  his  capacity  of  theologer  to  trace  the 
celestial  genealogy  a  step  or  two  further  back,  he 
fell  plump  into  a  mighty  void,  which  showed  how 
little  there  was  of  deep,  thoughtful  piety,  and  how 
much  of  superficial  impression  of  the  senses  and 
shallow  sport  of  fancy,  in  what  the  subtle  Greeks 
had  to  content  themselves  with  for  a  theology. 
Hear  how  the  book  of  the  celestial  generations 
runs.  Hexameters  are  apt  to  have  rather  an  un- 
graceful hop  in  English,  but  we  may  try  them 
here  for  a  recreation  : — 

**  In  the  beginning  was  Chaos  :  and  afte^^v^l•ds  came  into  being 
Earth  broad-breasted,  the  stable  upholder  of  starry  Olympus  ; 


20      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

Darksome  Tartarus, too,  within  the  bosom  of  broad  Earth  ; 
Likewise  Eros,  the  loveliest-born  of  all  the  Immortals, 
Thrilling  the  limbs  of  men  and  of  gods  with  gentle  emotion, 
Conquering  counsel  and  wit  in  the  charmed  breast  of  the  wisest. 
Erebus,  then,  and  black-stoled  Night  were  children  of  Chaos ; 
Night  was  mother  of  Ether,  and  Day  was  daughter  of  Darkness, 
And  when  Erebus  mingled  with  Night  in  fruitful  embracement, 
Earth  then  brought  into  being  the  might  of  the  starry  Welkin 
Like  to  herself,  to  spread  his  vasty  curtain  around  her." 

We  have  nothing  here  manifestly  but  a  succes- 
sion of  appearances,  which  no  man  who  meant 
thinking  could  mistake  for  a  philosophy  of  the 
universe.  To  call  Night  the  mother  of  Day,  if 
anything  Hke  causal  connection  be  implied,  is  just 
as  absurd  as  to  say  that  emptiness  is  the  mother  of 
fulness.  When  I  pour  water  into  an  empty  tum- 
bler, no  doubt  the  tumbler  was  empty  before  it  was 
full ;  in  the  order  of  my  sensations  the  emptiness 
came  before  the  fulness.  That  is  all.  In  like  man- 
ner, when  I  take  my  dinner,  hunger  goes  before 
eating,  and  is  in  one  sense  the  cause  of  my  eating  ; 
but  the  cause  of  there  being  a  dinner  to  eat  is  the 
cuHnary  care  of  the  cook.  So,  if  I  build  a  house, 
I  may  say,  with  Hesiod,  In  the  beginning  was  the 
chaos  of  stones  called  a  quarry,  and  from  that  chaos 
came  the  beautiful  array  of  curiously  co-ordinated 
stones  which  I  call  my  house.  But  everybody  sees 
that  without  the  plan  of  the  thoughtful  architect 


Presumptions,  2 1 

and  the  skilful  hand  of  the  mason,  the  stones  of  the 
quarry  could  never  heap  themselves  into  a  house. 
So  it  is  with  all  order.  To  say  that  as  a  matter 
"  of  individual  experience  in  any  particular  case 
,  order  proceeded  out  of  disorder,  explains  nothing  ; 
it  only  states  the  case  to  be  explained.  How  did 
the  order  come  about  ?  This  simple  question  the 
theology  of  the  Greeks  seems  never  to  have  even 
started.  Their  religion  consisted  simply  in  the 
recognition  of  an  established  divine  order  of  things 
under  supreme  authority,  with  reverential  submis- 
sion of  the  will  thereto. 

We  have  now  to  answer  a  very  natural  question  : 
how  far  is  this  general  consent  of  humanity  a  valid 
argument  for  theism  ?  If  the  old  sage  had  any 
reason  for  saying  ol  iroXKol  KaKolj  the  majority  are 
bad,  might  he  not  have  equal  or  greater  ground 
for  asserting  the  majority  are  fools  ?  Certainly  a 
mere  majority  taken  by  itself  would  be  a  very  poor 
argument  for  the  truth  of  any  proposition  or  for 
the  rectitude  of  any  course  of  conduct  ;  otherwise 
all  unlimited  democracies  would  always  be  right, 
whereas  experience  has  proved  that  they  are  pecu- 
liarly liable  to  go  wrong.  If  the  majority  of  per- 
sons in  any  village  were  given  to  drunkenness, 
this  certainly  would  afford  no  argument  in  favour 


22      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

of  the  beauty  of  intoxication.  And,  though  men 
often  decide  very  serious  matters  by  mere  majori- 
ties, is  it  not  rather  because  they  cannot  do  better 
than  because  they  have  any  firm  faith  that  the 
majorities  will  be  right  ?  If  suits  on  the  issue  of 
which  many  thousands  of  pounds  depend  are  con- 
stantly decided  by  a  majority  of  judges  in  the 
Scottish  Court  of  Session,  how  often  has  the  deci- 
sion of  that  majority  been  reversed  by  the  decision 
of  a  single  judge  in  the  English  House  of  Lords  ? 
And  naturally  enough  too  ;  for  one  strong  head 
will  always  be  better  than  twenty  weak  heads  ;  and 
turning  the  scores  into  hundreds  would  only  multi- 
ply the  confusion.  And  if,  looking  into  the  general 
administration  of  human  affairs  in  any  small  town 
or  large  city,  you  should  happen  to  have  your  eye 
fastened  by  any  great  improvement  which  has  re- 
cently been  made — such  as,  for  example,  the  win- 
ning of  land  from  the  sea,  and  turning  a  useless, 
slimy  beach  into  a  beautiful,  breezy,  green  espla- 
nade, as  has  been  done  at  Rothesay  in  Bute,  or 
opening  up  a  free  prospect  and  a  healthy  ventila- 
tion— you  will  find  that  it  was  not  the  majority  at 
all  who  did  or  desired  these  changes,  but  that  some 
one  man  of  large  views  and  strong  will  had  forced 
them,  in  spite  of  the  indifference  of  the  great  ma- 


Presumptions,  23 

jority  and  the  violent  hostility  of  a  few.  In  what 
sense,  then,  shall  we  say  that  the  consent  of  a  ma- 
jority supplies  a  test,  or  affords  even  a  presump- 
tion of  what  is  right  ?  Plainly  not  in  cases  where 
any  very  extensive  knowledge  or  subtle  views  are 
required  ;  nor  in  cases  where  a  man  can  claim  no 
right  to  have  an  opinion  at  all,  except  after  special 
study,  and  with  professional  training;  as  Httle  in 
cases  where  the  general  judgment  has  been  obscur- 
ed, and  cool  discrimination  been  rendered  impossi- 
ble by  the  hot  smoke  and  steaming  mists  of  faction, 
ecclesiastical  or  civil.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  pre- 
ponderant rightness  in  the  sentiment  of  the  multi- 
tude, even  in  their  judgments  of  important  public 
matters,  which  every  one  feels  in  practice,  and 
which  even  the  cool  Aristotle  defends  and  illus- 
trates at  considerable  length  in  his  estimate  of  the 
value  of  democratic  forms  of  government,  as  op- 
posed to  oligarchic*  Perhaps  we  shall  hit  the 
mark  here,  if  we  say  broadly  that,  as  nature  is 
always  right,  the  general  and  normal  sentiment  of 
the  majority  must  always  be  right,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
rooted  in  the  universal  and  abiding  instincts  of 
humanity ;  and  public  opinion,  as  the  opinion  of 

*Pol.  III.  ir. 


24      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

the  majority,  will  be  right  also  in  all  matters  which 
belong  to  the  general  conduct  of  life  among  all 
classes,  and  with  respect  to  which  the  mind  of  the 
majority  has  been  allowed  a  perfectly  free,  natural, 
and  healthy  exercise.  And  there  will  always  be  a 
presumption  against  practices,  sentiments,  and  opin- 
ions which  run  flat  in  the  teeth  of  universal  prac- 
tice and  the  unvaried  tradition  of  humanity.  It 
affords  a  presumption  against  total  abstinence,  for 
instance,  as  a  philosophy  of  life  (for  its  utility  as  a 
special  vigorous  remedy  against  a  special  severe 
malady  may  well  be  admitted),  that  men  of  all 
classes  in  all  ages  have  been  fond  of  a  glass  of  wine : 
in  like  manner  it  affords  a  presumption  against  the 
Quakers  that  men  of  all  nations  and  in  all  centuries 
have  fought  great  battles  with  their  neighbours, 
and  become  great  and  strong  by  the  fighting  of 
great  battles  ;  and,  again,  it  affords  a  strong  pre- 
sumption against  the  notion  of  dispensing  with 
lawyers,  clergymen,  physicians,  and  all  professional 
jxien — a  favourite  panacea  with  some — that  in  all 
ages  and  in  all  countries  such  types  of  the  social 
man  have  grownup,  and  found  grateful  recognition 
from  the  majority.  And,  though  the  majority  of 
mankind  are  not  philosophers,  yet  in  all  matters 
where  nature  rules,  there  is  a  wisdom  in  them  that 


Presu  mptions,  2  5 

justly  maintains  its  ground  against  the  subtle  specu- 
lations of  abstract  thinkers  who  excite  attention  by 
confounding  things  which  are  naturally  distinct, 
and  denying  things  which  the  constitution  of  our 
nature  forces  us  imperiously  to  assert.  If  a  glib 
creature,  for  instance,  calHng  himself,  or  being 
called,  a  philosopher,  should  maintain  that  beauty 
depends  on  utility  and  fitness,  you  may  safely  let 
him  spin  as  many  chapters  as  he  may  choose  in 
illustration  of  such  a  perverse  paradox,  when  every- 
body knows  that  the  ugliest  possible  bridge  (which 
the  railway  companies  frequently  make)  is  as  useful 
for  its  end,  and  as  fit  for  its  purpose,  as  the  most 
ornamental  structure  ever  devised.  The  systems 
of  subtle  thinkers,  in  fact,  always  require  to  be 
watched  with  particular  caution  :  clever  people  are 
peculiarly  apt  to  love  the  fancies  of  their  own  be- 
getting, more  than  the  facts  of  God's  creation : 
though  clever^  they  are  not  necessarily  wise  ;  and, 
like  Narcissus,  will  be  found  sometimes  glassing 
themselves  complacently  in  their  own  real  or  im- 
agined perfections,  which  are  very  far  from  ex- 
hausting the  sum-total  of  plastic  forces  in  the  uni- 
verse. 


CHAPTER  II. 
REASONABLE  GROUND   OF  THEISM. 

"Eo-Tt  5i7  fifv  TTphs  yovus  (piXia  reKvois  Koi  ayOpuirots  irphs  deovs, 
&s  TTphs  ayadhv  koX  virep4xov  ev  yap  ircTTOL'fjKacn  ra  fi4yiffra'  rov  yhp 
fluai  Kol  Tpa(priuai  dtrtoi,  koI  yevo/j-fvois  tov  iratdevdrivai' 

'AvdyKT}  itvai  aiSiou  riua  ovcridu  aKiyrjTov-  4>a/iej'  5e  rhu  Oehy 
etyai  ^uov  di'Siov,  dpiarov. 

Aristotle. 

INGENIOUS  novelties  of  the  kind  we  referred 
to  at  the  close  of  last  chapter,  whether  pro- 
pounded by  the  logician,  or  naturalist,  by  positive 
philosophers  like  Plato,  or  negative  philosophers 
like  David  Hume,  may  make  men  stare  for  a  day, 
and  talk  for  a  century,  but  they  will  never  stand 
against  Nature.  **  Ophiiofiurn  coimnefita  delet 
dieSy  Natures  judicia  co7tfirmaty'  said  the  great 
master  of  old  Roman  eloquence,  and  the  eloquent 
expounder  of  old  Roman  sense.  Build  up  your 
Babels  of  transcendental  or  paradoxical  speculation 
as  high  as  you  please,  if  they  have  no  root  in  the 


Reasonable   Ground  of  Theism,        27 

fundamental  facts  of  Nature,  they  are  only  so 
much  paper  ;  card  castles  which  will  fall  to  the 
ground  easily  enough,  when  the  wind  changes  and 
the  whiff  comes.  And  of  these  Babels  which  the 
perverse  ingenuity  of  men  has  piled  up,  there  is 
none  against  which  the  verdict  of  the  majority 
and  the  loud  protest  of  Nature  will  more  certain- 
ly prevail  than  atheism.  Theologians,  no  doubt 
sometimes  with  a  shallow  impertinence,  and  a  pre- 
sumptuous dogmatism,  may  have  propounded 
many  things  about  the  character,  attributes,  and 
administrative  procedure  of  the  Supreme  Reason, 
in  protesting  against  which  atheists  may  justly  put 
in  a  claim  for  modesty  and  wisdom  ;  but  when 
they  go  beyond  this,  and  instead  of  the  arbitrary 
dogmas  of  certain  ecclesiastical  councils,  go  to  war 
with  the  deep-rooted  instincts  of  humanity,  they 
can  no  more  hope  to  maintain  their  ground  than  a 
little  smoke  and  mist  in  some  muddled  locality  can 
obscure  permanently  the  glorious  sun  in  the  firma- 
ment. For  that  feeling  of  reverential  dependence 
of  the  finite  derived  reason  on  the  infinite  unde- 
rived  reason  (the  yloyo?  of  John  i.  i)  is  so  rooted 
in  all  sound  reasonable  existence  that  it  requires 
rather  a  perverse  ingenuity  to  give  the  opposite 
thesis — that  is  all  sorts  of  atheism — the  semblance 


28      The  Natter al  History  of  Atheism, 

of  truth  than  any  peculiar  perspicacity  to  perceive 
that  it  is  false.  If  the  majority,  as  Aristotle 
argues — though  there  are  many  fools  amongst 
them,  and  though  they  do  not  a  few  foolish  and 
mad  things  occasionally — are  nevertheless  upon 
the  whole  entitled  to  have  a  voice  in  the  difficult 
conduct  of  public  affairs,  much  more  are  they  en- 
titled, by  the  primary  postulates  of  all  reasonable 
nature,  to  protest  against  such  a  hollow  absurdity 
as  atheism.  For  the  maintenance  of  the  atheistic 
theory  necessarily  implies  one  of  three  things  : 
either  that  effects  can  be  produced  without  a 
cause  ;  or  that  a  system  of  reasonable  effects  can 
be  produced  without  a  reasonable  cause  ;  or  that 
the  system  of  effects  which  we  call  -the  world  is 
essentially  unreasonable,  and  therefore  does  not 
proceed  from  a  reasonable  source.  Now  of  these 
three  atheistic  propositions,  the  negative  of  the 
first  is  of  the  nature  of  a  postulate  to  all  sane 
minds ;  and  the  wretched  cavil  about  invariable 
sequence  which  David  Hume  introduced,  and  John 
Stuart  Mill  made  fashionable  for  a  day,  will  no 
more  do  away  with  the  idea  of  causality  in  the 
great  mass  of  normally  constituted  minds,  than  the 
assertion  that  the  regular  going  up  and  down  of  a 
piston  in  a  cylinder   renders  the  supposition  of  a 


Reasonable  Ground  of  Theism,        29 

constructive  reason  in  the  person  of  a  James  Watt 
superfluous  in  order  to  explain  the  existence  of  a 
steam-engine.  If  physical  science  can  put  its 
fingers  on  nothing  but  a  series  of  s.equences,  it 
merely  proves  that  science  is  not  philosophy,  and 
is  altogether  a  subordinate  affair ;  but  when  philo- 
sophers, with  their  most  acute  spectacles,  can  see 
nothing  in  the  world  but  an  infinite  series  of 
invariable  sequences,  the  sooner  they  give  up  their 
profession  of  wisdom  the  better ;  for  it  is  just  the 
invariability  of  the  sequences  which  forces  the 
reasonable  mind  of  man  to  assert  that  there  is  a 
cause  within  them,  or  behind  them,  which  makes 
the  invariability  possible.  As  to  the  second  propo- 
sition, that  a  series  of  reasonable  effects  can  be 
produced  without  a  reasonable  cause,  any  sane 
man — and  the  more  ignorant  the  better  for  our 
present  argument — will  answer  without  hesitation, 
as  Cicero  drd,  that  when  a  box  of  letters,  such  as 
are  used  to  teach  children  the  alphabet,  shall  have 
tumbled  themselves  into  a  well-reasoned  treatise, 
he  will  believe  such  proposition,  not  sooner.  The 
third  proposition,  the  real  stronghold  of  all  prac- 
tical atheism,  though  at  bottom  equally  untenable, 
admits  of  being  dressed  out  in  some  sentences  of 
plausible   pleading,  and   therefore  must  be   more 


30     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

seriously  looked  at.  The  pious  theist  founds  his 
faith  on  the  wonderful  order  and  beauty,  and  the 
exceeding  cunning  displayed  in  the  architecture  of 
the  universe.  The  most  obvious  and  ready  way 
for  the  atheist  to  contravene  this  argument  is  to 
bring  into  the  foreground  the  contrary  of  this  ; 
and  to  assert  roundly  that  there  is  really  as  much 
disorder  as  order  in  the  universe.  Of  course,  for 
this  form  of  argumentation  there  are  materials  at 
hand  of  a  very  formidable  look  not  far  to  fetch : 
Neapolitan  and  Icelandic  volcanoes  ;  Lisbon 
earthquakes  ;  inundations  of  the  Garonne  at  Tou- 
louse, or  of  the  Dee  at  Aberdeen  ;  storms,  squalls, 
cyclones,  shipwrecks,  conflagrations,  conspiracies, 
murders,  massacres,  idiocies,  madness,  and  all 
sorts  of  evil  and  foolish  things  which  make  a 
prominent  figure  in  the  newspapers.  But,  before 
we  talk  on  these  subjects  in  a  perplexed  or,  what 
is  worse,  in  an  inculpatory  humour,  let  us  consider 
calmly  what  our  position  in  this  vast  universe 
really  is.  It  is  pretty  much  like  the  position  of  a 
single  ant-hill  in  a  vast  forest.  If  you  happen  to 
be  walking  through  some  pine  forest,  as  at  Avie- 
more  or  Braemar,  with  your  head  very  high,  and 
full  of  fine  fancies,  let  us  imagine,  you  come 
roughly,  with  your  heel,  booted  and  spurred  per- 


Reasonable  Grou7id  of  Theism,        31 

haps,  plump  into  the  middle  of  that  metropolis  of 
straws  ;  then  what  happens  ?  the  architecture  of 
laborious  weeks  is  destroyed  in  a  moment,  and 
some  scores  of  those  active  httle  intelligences 
called  ants  squelched  out  of  existence,  at  a  stroke. 
Now,  suppose  one  of  the  ants  who  had  not  been 
squelched,  with  a  particularly  sensitive  brain,  and 
a  great  amount  of  self-importance,  being  able  to 
make  theories  like  human  philosophers,  should 
excogitate  a  treatise  or  a  tissue  of  imaginations 
that  might  make  a  treatise  to  the  effect — My  beau- 
tiful architecture  has  been  destroyed  :  therefore, 
either  there  is  no  God,  or  a  God  who  delights  in 
mischief.  What  think  you  of  this  logic  ?  If  it  is 
just,  then  let  us  all  become  atheists  to-morrow  ;  if 
it  is  ridiculous,  let  us  hear  nothing  more  of  such 
nonsense.  The  real  fact  is,  that  in  a  vast  and 
varied  world  heaving  and  swelHng,  and  ramping 
everywhere,  so  to  speak,  with  the  most  eager 
vitahty,  collisions  and  confusions  of  vital  forces 
will  constantly  be  occurring,  which  may  produce  a 
certain  amount  of  discomfort  to  individual  exist- 
ences, or  even  blow  them  out  altogether,  but 
which  prove  no  more  the  disorder  of  the  universe, 
than  a  skit  of  a  boy's  squirt  can  put  out  the  sun. 
In  some  parts  of  the  west  of  Scotland,  from  the 


32      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

peculiar  configuration  of  the  richly  varied  coast- 
line, two  opposite  tides  come  in,  and  where  they 
meet  make  a  jabble  which  disturbs  the  serenity 
sometimes  of  nervous  ladies  in  pleasure-boats. 
Is  there  therefore  no  certain  and  regular  flow  in  the 
tides,  but  only  a  universal  jabble  ?  The  whole 
system  of  the  world,  from  the  wheeling  planets  in 
the  sky  to  the  little  brown  ant-hill,  or  the  grey- 
crusted  lichen  on  the  crag,  exists  in,  by,  and 
through  a  reasoned  order  :  the  disorder  belongs 
not  to  the  existence  of  any  one  thing,  but  to  points 
of  occasional  disturbance  arising  naturally  out  of 
the  coexistence  of  many  things.  Who  can  look 
nakedly  on  such  logic  as  this,  without  smiling — 
''  I  have  the  toothache  ;  therefore  there  is  no  God.'' 
This  is  the  way  a  clever  French  writer  puts  the 
absurdity  of  this  plea  for  atheism.  It  is  the  pro- 
duct of  narrowness  of  view,  and  selfishness  of 
feehng.  Let  Dr.  Paley's  answer  suffice  for  all 
such  vain  talkers :—"  The  teeth  do  ache  some- 
times, but  they  were  manifestly  not  made  for  ach- 
ing." 

On  the  subject  of  EviL  generally,  a  great  deal 
of  impertinent  stuff  has  been  talked — not  seldom 
by  very  pious  people,  who  forget,  in  the  first 
place,  to  tell  us  what  GoOD  is  ;  and,  in  the  second 


Reasonable  Ground  of  Theism,        2)2> 

place,  fail  to  show  us  how  much  of  what  is  good 
and  best  in  the  world  could  possibly  have  been 
produced  without  the  existence  of  many  forms  of 
what  is  commonly  called  EviL.  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  in  one  of  his  chapters,  defines  pleasure 
unhindered  energy.  Very  well  ;  this  is  a  sort  of 
pleasure  which  may  suit  some  persons,  or  many 
persons.  But  there  are  others — not  a  few — who 
will  say  that  they  prefer  the  pleasure  which  arises, 
not  from  the  absence,  but  from  the  presence,  of 
hindrances.  Their  notion  of  happiness  is  to  strug- 
gle with,  difficulties,  not  to  evade  them.  What,  it 
may  well  be  asked,  is  the  use  of  energy,  if  not  to 
struggle  with  difficulty  ?  But  difficulty  is  only 
another  name  for  what  lazy  people  call  evil  ;  as 
when  virtue  is  described  as  an  up-hill  work,  and 
vice  as  a  prone  descent.  If  virtue  were  as  easy  as 
vice,  virtue  would  cease  to  be  virtue  ;  in  other 
words,  in  a  world  where  there  was  no  evil  there 
could  be  no  good — at  least,  no  good  of  the  highest 
kind.  If  there  were  no  ignorance,  how  could 
there  be  the  greedy  delight  of  opening  up  from 
ignorance  into  knowledge  ?  If  all  men  instinctively 
knew  everything,  where  were  the  pleasant  relation 
of  teacher  and  taught  ?  If  there  were  no  poverty, 
where  were  charity  ?    If  every  person  were  equally 

2* 


34      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

independent  and  self-reliant,  where  would  be  the 
gracious  pleasure  on  both  sides,  which  arises  from 
the  support  given  by  the  strong  to  the  weak  ? 
Where,  again,  would  be  the  topping  virtue  of 
moral  courage,  unless  the  majority,  at  some  par- 
ticular critical  moment,  were  cowards  ?  Where 
would  be  the  skill  of  the  pilot,  unless  there  were 
squalls  and  unexpected  blasts,  by  which  people 
might  possibly  be  drowned  ?  Where  the  science  of 
a  surgeon,  if  legs  were  made  of  stuff  that  could  not 
possibly  break  ?  And  if  the  garden,  left  to  itself, 
grew  not  nettles  and  thistles  and  hawkweed  and 
dock,  but  only  roses  and  potatoes  and  peas,  where 
were  the  work  of  the  gardener  ?  In  fact,  always 
and  everywhere  the  development  of  energy  imph'es 
the  existence  of  that  which  energy  must  subdue, 
namely,  evil  in  some  shape  or  other.  Therefore 
the  existence  of  evil  is  not  a  proof  that  there  is 
no  God  ;  but  it  is  by  the  overcoming  of  evil  con- 
stantly that  God  proves  Himself  to  be  God,  and 
man  proves  himself  to  be  God-like,  when,  in  his 
subordinate  sphere,  he  does  the  same.  The  only 
real  evil  in  the  world  is  the  negative,  carping 
spirit,  the  Mephistopheles  of  Goethe's  Faust, 
which,  for  lack  of  will  to  use  the  given  mate- 
rials  in   the  given   way,  gratifies   an  unreasoning 


Reasonable  Ground  of  Theism,        35 

restlessness    in   blaming    everything    and    doing 
nothing. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  considerations 
which  might  be  adduced  to  show  how  unmeaning 
are  the  objections  which  the  atheist  brings  against 
the  grand  and  beautiful  order  of  breathing  things 
which  we  call  the  world.  From  our,  human  posi- 
tion and  partial  point  of  view  the  laws  of  ordei* 
are  not  always  equally  comprehensible  ;  but  Dis- 
order is  nowhere.  If  it  were  to  exist  at  all,  the 
world  would  very  soon  cease  to  be  a  world  ;  con- 
secutive reason  would  dissolve  into  a  general 
babblement  of  Bedlam  ;  and  nothing  would  remain 
but  a  bhnd  weaving  and  unweaving  of  a  tissue  of 
unintelligent  and  unintelligible  forces.  So  far  is 
this,  however,  from  being  the  actual  state  of 
things,  that  the  more  we  penetrate  into  the  hidden 
workings  of  Nature,  the  more  we  discover  that  the 
superficial  multiplicity  of  outward  movements  is 
governed  by  a  higher  Unity,  which  pervades  and 
controls  all ;  and  this  principle  is  simply  God,  in 
whom,  as  St.  Paul  says,  you  and  I  and  all  things 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  As  in  a 
mighty  host  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men 
encamped  on  a  battle-field  of  many  miles  in  ex- 
tent, movements  are  constantly  taking  place  which 


^6     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

are  unintelligible  to  the  private  soldier  in  the 
position  which  he  occupies,  but  which  all  shoot 
out  from  the  directing  mind  of  the  great  Napoleon 
or  Moltke  of  the  struggle  as  clearly  and  as 
efficiently  as  the  divergent  radiation  of  the  sun  ; 
so,  most  certainly,  all  the  multiplicity  of  apparent- 
ly tangled  movements  in  the  living  machinery  of 
the  world,  is  the  manifestation  of  that  self-exist- 
ent, self-energizing,  all-present,  all-controlling,  all- 
moulding,  reasonable  Unity,  whom  we  justly  call 
God.  Any  other  theory  of  the  world  is  either 
nonentity  or  nonsense. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ATHEISM  ;     ITS     SPECIFIC     VARIETIES    AND     COM- 
MON   ROOT. 

<*  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,  there  is  no  God," 

Psalms  of  David. 

**  Of  such  doctrine  never  was  there  school 
But  the  heart  of  the  fool, 
And  naman  therein  Doctor  but  himself." 

Milton. 

HAVING  in  the  previous  chapter  stated,  in 
a  few  broad  lines,  the  general  basis  of  the 
theistic  creed,  I  shall  now  attempt  to  lay  bare  the 
pathology  of  that  most  strange  disease  of  the 
speculative  faculty  which  we  call  Atheism.  The 
history  of  error  is  the  necessary  and  most  instruc- 
tive complement  of  the  theory  of  truth. 

And  in  endeavouring  to  set  forth  the  causes  of 
this  monstrous  disease  of  the  reasoning  faculty,  we 
shall  commence  with  the  simplest  conceivable, 
viz.,  such  absolute  feebleness  or  babyhood  of  in- 


38     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

tellect  as  has  not  yet  reached  to  the  conception 
of  a  cause  at  all.  Travellers  and  anthropological 
writers  tell  us  of  savage  tribes  whose  faculty  of 
discriminating  multitude  has  not  reached  beyond 
the  number  five.  Some  men,  even  of  well-culti- 
vated minds,  but  unused  to  figures,  can  scarcely 
perform  a  simple  arithmetical  operation  without 
confounding  addition  and  subtraction  ;  and,  if  so, 
there  may,  of  course,  be  creatures  so  imperfectly 
emerged  from  the  original  monkey-germ  of  hu- 
manity (to  speak  for  a  moment  with  Darwin),  and 
so  totally  engrossed  with  putting  into  some  sort 
of  order  the  multitude  of  sensuous  impressions 
now  being  raised  into  ideas,  that  the  notion  of 
cause  has  never  arisen  in  their  minds.  Each  in- 
dividual amongst  us  remembers  a  period  when 
curious  observation  and  recognition  of  individual 
sensuous  impressions  formed  the  sole  occupation 
of  budding  intellect ;  and  we  have  only  to  imagine 
the  growth  of  the  reasoning  faculties  suddenly 
stopped  in  incipient  boyhood,  in  order  to  realise 
the  notion  of  a  human  being  incapable  of  the 
idea  of  God.  Stunted  individuals  of  all  kinds, 
and  stunted  races  may  exist  just  as  trees  trying  to 
grow  in  the  Western  Hebrides  are  blasted  down 
to   the   stature   of  gooseberry  bushes.     Atheists, 


Its   Varieties  ajtd  their  Root,  39 

therefore,  wherever  they  may  be  the  natural  pro- 
duct of  stunted  and  half-developed  intellect,  we 
shall  set  down  in  the  lowest  stage,  and  call  them 
Atheists  of  imbecility.  Bat,  as  we  do  not  go  out 
of  our  way  to  see  oak  trees  not  bigger  than  goose- 
berry bushes,  so  we  need  not  detain  ourselves 
with  this  type  of  intellectual  incapables.  It  is  not 
Atheists  of  this  class  that  we  are  likely  to  meet 
with  in  the  present  age  ;  and  if  we  did  meet  with 
them,  we  should  be  much  more  likely  to  remit 
them  summarily  to  some  hospital  of  incurables, 
than  to  a  thinking  school  where  they  might  be 
gradually  trained  up  to  a  comprehension  of  Leib- 
nitz, and  Butler,  and  Dr.  Paley.  It  is  not  defect 
of  intellect  in  ages  of  civilisation,  but  perversity, 
that  is  the  main  cause  of  Atheism. 

The  next  type  of  the  atheistic  disease  which 
demands  notice  has  its  origin  not  so  much  in  an 
intellectual  feebleness,  as  in  a  moral  disorder  of 
the  reasonable  creature.  We  may  have  met  some- 
times in  hfe,  or  at  all  events  in  the  columns  of 
newspapers,  with  persons  of  a  certain  irregular, 
disorderly,  distempered  habit  of  mind  with  a  life 
and  character  correspondent.  The  career  of  these 
people  is  like  a  piece  of  music  made  up  of  a  con- 
stant succession  of  jars  which  shakes  the  strings  so 


40     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

much  by  unkindly  vibrations,  that  the  instrument, 
from  the  force  of  an  unnatural  strain,  cracks  itself 
into    silence    prematurely.       Now    unharmonized 
characters  of  this   description   are  naturally  indis- 
posed, and  practically  incapacitated,  from  recog- 
nising order,  design,  and  system   in  the   constitu- 
tion of  the   universe  ;  and  of  course   cannot   see 
God.     We  find,  indeed,  always  in  the  world  only 
what  we  bring  with  us,  a  capacity  of  finding.     An 
ass  that  delights  in  its  own  braying,  as  it  is  to  be 
presumed  all  asses  do,  cannot  be  expected  to  find 
delight  in  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven  ;  a  gam- 
bler who   has  been  long  accustomed  to   feed  his 
emotional  nature  on  the  irrational  stimulus  afforded 
by  the  blind  throw  of  the  dice,  loses  the  capacity 
of  extracting  pleasure  from  the  normal  exercise  of 
reason  ;  and  a  drunkard  who   has  destroyed   the 
tone  of  his  stomach  by  the   constant  irritation  of 
strong  liquors,  will  turn  away  from  the  simplicity 
of  Nature's  most  healthy  beverage  as  from  a  poi- 
son.    It  could  serve  no  good  purpose  to  parade 
in   these   pages    flaming  examples  of  the  terrible 
pranks   played   by  disorderly  characters   in   high 
places,  who   showed  by  their  whole  conduct  that 
they  regarded  neither  God  nor  man,  but  delighted 
in  the  production  of  sheer  chaos  for  the   triumpk 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  41 

of  a  grossly  selfish  energy.  The  biography  of 
Jack  Sheppard  may  be  a  very  profitable  study  for 
young  thieves,  but  honest  men  will  furnish  the 
picture  galleries  of  their  brain  not  with  such  por- 
traits. Nevertheless,  it  occurs  to  me  to  set  down 
here  the  features  of  one  of  the  most  notable  of 
those  disorderly  characters  who  lived  in  ancient 
Rome  at  that  same  epoch  when  the  hollow  atheism 
of  Epicurus  was  dressed  up  for  a  day  in  the  garb 
of  poetical  beauty  by  a  poet  of  no  mean  genius 
called  Lucretius.  The  man  I  mean  is  Catiline. 
Hear  how  Sallust  in  a  well-known  passage  de- 
scribes him:  ''Lucius  Catiline,  born  of  a  noble 
family,  a  man  of  great  strength,  both  of  mind  and 
body,  but  of  a  wicked  and  perverse  disposition. 
To  this  man,  from  his  youth  upwards,  intestine 
broils,  slaughters,  rapines,  and  civil  wars  were  a 
delight ;  and  in  these  he  put  forth  all  the  energy 
of  his  youth.  He  could  boast  a  bodily  frame 
capable  of  enduring  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and 
watching,  beyond  all  belief;  he  had  a  spirit  daring, 
cunning,  and  full  of  shifts,  ready  alike  to  simulate 
what  he  was  not,  and  to  dissimulate  what  he  was, 
as  occasion  might  call.  Greedy  of  others'  prop- 
erty, he  was  lavish  of  his  own  ;  in  passion  fiery ; 
in  words  copious  ;  in  wisdom  scant.     His  unchas- 


42      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

tened  ambition  was  constantly  desiring  things  im- 
moderate, incredible,  and  beyond  human  reach." 
This  is  exactly  the  sort  of  character,  to  whose 
completeness,  if  anything  like  a  philosophy  is  to  be 
attributed,  atheism  will'  be  that  thing.  For  how 
can  the  man  who  delights  in  turning  the  social 
order  into  chaos  cherish  the  belief  that  the  world 
is  a  physical  system,  moulded  and  maintained  by  a 
spirit  of  which  the  essential  function  is  to  create 
order  out  of  confusion,  not  the  contrary?  The 
man,  whoever  he  be,  that  sets  Rome  or  Paris  on 
fire,  is  an  atheist,  and  one  of  the  worst  type  ;  he 
not  only  denies  in  a  speculative  way  the  fair  order 
of  the  universe,  but  he  actually  employs  himself 
systematically  in  creating  disorder.  And  what 
does  the  Roman  historian  say  about  the  character 
of  the  age  which  produced  this  sort  of  monster  ? 
Was  it  remarkable  for  religion,  for  piety?  Not 
at  all.  Hear  the  words:  ''When  the  Romans, 
who  had  grown  great  by  labour  and  righteousness, 
at  length  saw  all  nations  subdued,  and  the  world, 
both  sea  and  land,  at  their  feet,  then  Fortune  be- 
gan to  rage  and  to  confound  all  things.  That 
very  people,  who  had  found  it  an  easy  thing  to 
endure  any  sort  of  difficulty  and  danger,  found 
ease  and  wealth,  a  blessing  to  the  wise,  the  source 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root.  43 

of  misery  and  ruin.  First,  greed  of  money,  and 
then  lust  of  power,  grew  rampant :  here  was  the 
fuel  which  fed  the  flame  of  all  evils.  For  the 
greed  of  money  and  the  haste  to  be  rich  sapped 
the  foundations  of  all  faith,  probity,  and  good 
morals  :  instead  of  the  old  virtues,  the  desire  of 
wealth  taught  men  insolence,  harshness,  the  neg- 
lect of  the  gods,  and  general  venality ;  while  the 
love  of  power  forced  many  men  to  be  false,  having 
one  thing  in  their  breast,  and  another  thing  on 
their  tongue :  friendships  were  cultivated,  not 
from  genuine  love,  but  from  some  consideration 
of  external  advantage  ;  and  men  were  more  anx- 
ious to  show  a  fair  face  than  to  keep  a  clean 
breast." 

In  this  striking  passage  the  writer  shows  us  by 
a  terrible  example  from  real  life,  how  true  the 
doctrine  of  St.  Paul  is,  which,  in  that  awful  sum- 
mation of  heathen  vice,  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  identifies  atheism  and  im- 
morality as  growing  out  of  one  common  root ;  not, 
of  course,  meaning  that  all  atheists  are  immoral 
(for  this,  as  we  well  know,  is  contrary  to  the  fact), 
but  that  certain  epochs  of  gross  social  disorder  and 
contempt  of  all  moral  restrictions  are  in  their 
nature    always  atheistic.     "  And  as  they  did  not 


44      T^^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

like  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge,  God  gave 
them  up  to  a  reprobate  mind,  to  do  things  which 
are  not  seemly,  being  filled  with  all  unrighteous- 
ness, wickedness,  avariciousness,  full  of  envy,  mur- 
der, strife,  guile,  evil  habitude,  being  whisperers, 
slanderers,  haters  of  God,  haughty,  insolent, 
boasters,  inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient  to 
parents,  senseless,  faithless,  without  natural  affec- 
tion, merciless."  For,  in  fact,  the  moment  the 
binding  power  of  the  great  cause  of  cosmic  unity, 
which  we  justly  call  God,  is  lost  sight  of,  the  mul- 
titudinous units  of  human  society  can  no  more 
hold  themselves  together  than  the  stones  of  an  arch 
when  the  key-stone  is  shaken  out.  Without  this 
controlling  unity  to  create  an  organic  subordina- 
tion of  part  to  part,  a  congregation  of  human 
beings  naturally  resolves  into  a  series  of  explosions 
of  fitful  individuaHsm,  which  ends  in  Chaos.  That 
which  saves  the  cosmos  at  any  assignable  moment 
from  reeling  back  into  chaos  is  simply  the  unity 
of  the  self-existent  divine  reason,  controlling  the 
physical  world  in  the  first  place  by  what  we  call 
laws  of  nature,  and  the  moral  world  by  what  we 
call  the  principles  of  right  conduct.  Fundamen- 
tally both  are  one  ;  deny  the  radical  unity  of  laws 
of  nature  in  the  divine  ^0709  and  you  can  have  no 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  45 

reason  to  admit  a  controlling  unity  of  reasonable 
plan  in  a  well-ordered  life,  or  a  well-governed 
state. 

So  much  for  the  outstanding  extreme  types  of 
godless  humanity — the  atheistic  incapable  and  the 
atheistic  monster.  Let  us  now  descend  a  little 
into  the  arena  of  common  modern  life,  and  see 
what  symptoms  of  the  morbid  atheistic  pathology 
we  may  discover  there.  Now  as  nettles  are  seen 
growing  abundantly  always  where  human  habita- 
tions have  been,  and  every  weed  has  its  favourite 
soil,  out  of  which  it  seems  to  spring  spontaneously, 
so  all  the  varieties  of  speculative  and  practical 
atheism  which  we  meet  with  in  common  life  are 
weeds  sprung  from  the  rank  soil  of  irreverence. 
As  a  man  cannot  eat  without  an  appetite,  though 
all  the  fruitage  of  Paradise  be  spread  before  him, 
or  as  a  man  with  no  love  in  his  constitution  will  see 
a  whole  army  of  Aphrodites  marched  out  without 
emotion,  so  neither  can  gods  expect  acknowledg- 
ment from  the  sort  of  creature  in  whom  all  rever- 
ence for  superior  excellence  is  non-existent.  Rev- 
erence implies  a  certain  inferiority,  and  certain  or- 
gans by  which  the  inferior  lays  hold  of  the  superior, 
and  thereby  achieves  the  pleasant  feeling  of  eleva- 
tion.    But  how  shall  a  climbing  plant  attach  itself 


46     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

to  the  lofty  wall,  if  you  cut  off  its  tendrils  ?  So  there 
are  human  souls  that  seem  to  have  no  tendrils,  ov 
whose  tendrils  have  been  frosted  or  nipped  off,  and 
thus  they  remain  without  any  bond  of  attachment  to 
their  natural  support.  These  are  the  men  whom 
St.  Paul,  who  knew  the  heathen  world  well,  desig- 
nates as  a^eot,  or  without  God  in  the  world  (Eph. 
ii.  12).  They  drift  about  in  a  whirl  of  unconse- 
crated  passion,  or  get  trampled  in  the  mire,  or, 
what  is  even  more  sad,  prop  themselves  up  in  vari- 
ous absurd  ways,  boasting  that  they  can  do  with- 
out tendrils,  and  that  only  a  weakling  will  cHng  by 
the  old  wall.  This  want  of  reverence,  which  is  the 
natural  soil  of  atheism,  may,  in  some  cases,  be  con- 
genital, like  a  lack  of  taste  for  music,  or  an  inca- 
pacity of  understanding  a  mathematical  proposi- 
tion. Some  human  beings  seem  shut  up  in  a 
certain  narrow  self-containment ;  to  such  the  rec- 
ognition of  anything  beyond  their  own  shell  is 
impossible ;  for  no  person  expects  a  lobster  to  come 
crawling  up  to  you,  and  look  in  your  face  with  the 
affectionate  worship  of  a  dog.  Man  is,  however, 
naturally  not  only  a  weak  creature,  but  a  creature 
who,  on  only  too  many  occasions,  is  made  sharply 
to  feel  his  weakness  ;  in  his  normal  state,  therefore, 
he  will  naturally   put   forth   feelers   towards   that 


Its    Varieties  and  their  Root,  47 

which  is  above  and  beyond  him,  and  that  which  he 
seeks  to  lay  hold  of  for  his  sustainment,  even  in  the 
most  blind   and   groping   way,  he  will  justly  call 
God.     This  lowest  and   simplest  form  of  religion, 
the    mere    feeling   of  dependence   on   a    superior 
Being,  however  inadequate,  and  however  far  from 
the    sublime   of  intelligent   piety,  is    nevertheless 
quite  natural ;  whereas  atheism,  in  a  mere  piece  of 
ephemeral  dependency,  such  as  the  strongest  man 
is,  must  always  remain   an  absurdity  and  a  mon- 
strosity.    We  shall  say,  therefore,  that  man,  being 
naturally  a  religious  animal,  atheism  can  then  only 
spring  up  when,  in  the  individual  or  in  society,  any 
influence   arises    which  nips   the   natural   bud   of 
reverence  in  the  soul,  and  perhaps  not  only  deprives 
this  emotion  of  its  healthy  nourishment,  but  fur- 
nishes  a  plenteous  supply  of  fuel  to  a  feeling  of 
isolated  self-sustainment.       Under   this   category 
falls  naturally  every  exercise  of  strength,  power,  or 
force  which   may  inspire  the   agent  with  a  strong 
feeling  of  independence,  and  incline  him,  in  the 
pride  of  the  moment,  stoutly  to  disown  his  depend- 
ence on  any  superior  power.     Of  course  in  such 
a  creature  as  man  this  sort  of  feeling  is  mere  mad- 
ness ;  for  the*  point  of  a  bare  bodkin  may  give  a 
quietus  to  the  earth-shaking  bulk  of  a  mammoth  as 


48      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

readily  as  to  the  minute  machinery  of  a  wren. 
Nevertheless,  experience  shows  amply  that  this 
feeling  of  self-sufficiency,  partly  natural  and  partly 
formed  by  a  favourable  circumstance,  may  grow  up 
to  extraordinary  dimensions,  and  teach  the  petty 
personality,  so  intoxicated  with  his  own  imagined 
self-importance,  to  play  a  farce  of  fantastic  tricks 
before  high  Heaven,  which  makes  men  laugh  and 
angels  weep.  Ancient  story,  both  sacred  and 
profane,  is  full  of  instances  of  this  kind  ;  indeed, 
the  wise  Greeks,  no  less  than  the  religious  Hebrews, 
seem  to  have  been  possessed  with  nothing  so  much 
as  with  a  sacred  fear  of  the  consequences  that 
follow  to  poor  humanity  when  a  just  self-esteem 
grows  up  into  a  false  self-importance,  and  a  false 
self-importance  is  exaggerated  into  a  monstrous 
self-worship.  Hence  the  frequent  repetition  of  the 
wise  warnings  to  persons  in  lofty  positions  to  re- 
member that  they  are  mortal ;  and  the  popular 
image  brought  before  the  imperial  absoluteness  of 
the  Eastern  monarch  in  Herodotus,*  or  by  Horace, 
in  one  of  his  familiar  odes,  that  the  lightnings 
of  Jove  love  to  strike  the  topmost  towers,  A  man 
is  never  in  greater  danger  than  when,  from  what- 
ever cause,  his  spirit,  to  use  the  Scripture  language, 

*  History,  vii.  lo. 


Its    Varieties  and  their  Root,  49 

is  *'  lifted  up,"  and  in  the  full-blown  sense  of 
prosperous  power,  he  forgets  how  he  is  girt  round 
with  mortal  weakness,  and  conceits  himself  that  he 
can  even  cope  with  the  gods.  *'Is  not  this  great 
Babylon  that  I  have  built  for  the  honour  of  the 
kingdom,  by  the  might  of  my  power,  and  for  the 
honour  of  my  majesty  ? "  says  the  Chaldean 
monarch  in  the  Book  of  Daniel ;  and  we  know 
what  happened.  A  man  is  never  nearer  being  a 
beast  than  when  he  imagines  himself  a  god.  The 
sentiment  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  such 
self-magnification  is  radically  atheistic,  essentially 
monstrous,  an  inversion  of  the  order  of  nature — as 
great  as  if  a  man  should  say  that  3  —  2  is  equal  to 


Demens  qui  nimbos  et  non  imitabile  fulmen, 
Acre  et  cornipedum  pulsu  simularat  equorum."  * 

Fool,  who  Jove's  thunder  and  immortal  bolt 
Would  ape  with  brass  and  tramp  of  hoofed  steeds." 


Now  of  this  rebellious  strength  and  insolent 
usurpation  of  the  throne  of  the  superior  by  the 
inferior,  the  lowest  form,  of  course,  is  when  mere 
animal  strength,  planting  itself  above  the  intellec- 

*  Virgil,  ^neid,  vi.  590. 


50     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

tual  and  moral,  assumes  the  reins  of  government, 
either  in  the  celestial  world  or  the  terrestrial.  Of 
this  type  of  atheism  the  Giants  and  others  in 
Greek  mythology  are  a  prominent  example  ;  the 
signification  of  which  the  reflective  Roman  lyrist 
saw  clearly.  '*  We  know,"  he  says,  in  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  those  wise  and  weighty  odes  which 
commence  the  third  book — '*We  know  how  the 
impious  Titans,  the  monstrous  troop,  were  hurled 
into  Tartarus  by  the  swooping  bolt  of  Him  who 
alone  controls  with  righteous  sway  the  sluggish 
land,  the  windy  sea,  and  the  dusky  realms  of  the 
dead  beneath  the  earth  ;  "  for  how  can  it  be  other- 
wise, since  everywhere  in  heaven  and  on  earth — 


**  Vis  consili  expers  mole  ruit  sua ; 

Vim  temperatam  Di  puoque  provehunt 
In  majus  :  idem  odere  vires 

Omne  nefas  animo  moventes."  * 


"Strength  without  counsel  falls  by  its  own  weight, 

But  tempered  force  grows  strong  and  stronger  still, 
By  grace  of  gods  who  wisely  do  abate 

The  insolent  thought  and  the  rebellious  will." 

And  in  the  same  way  Homer  always  characterises 
his   Cyclops,  Laestrygons,   and  other  savage  and 

*  Hor.  Lib.  iii.  Carm.  iv.  65. 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  51 

cannibal  tribes  from  whom  the  ill-starred  fellow- 
sailors  of  Ulysses  find  cruel  fate  as  not  only  inhu- 
man and  lawless,  but  utterly  destitute  of  any 
notion  of  religion  {pvhl  deovSi]<;,  Od.  ix.).  But 
it  is  the  intoxication  of  absolute  power  in  the 
government  of  men,  more  than  mere  brute 
strength,  that  chiefly  inclines  a  mortal  man  to  for- 
get his  human  limitations  and  imagine  that  he  can 
defy  the  gods,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  set  at 
nought  the  eternal  constitution  of  things,  by  bow- 
ing to  no  superior.  **  I  will  take  thexity,  whether 
Jove  wills  or  wills  not  !  "  cried  Capaneus,  in  the 
pride  of  assault  against  the  seven-gated  Thebes  ; 
and  the  intoxication  of  self-will,  and  the  madness 
of  self-worship  which  inspired  this  famous  old  sen- 
tence, stirs  even  now  the  breast  of  a  great  Napo- 
leon, dreaming  of  absorbing  vast  Europe,  or  a 
little  Napoleon,  scheming  in  the  way  of  his  smaller 
ambition,  for  a  Rhine  boundary.  There  is  an  un- 
mistakeable  germ  of  Atheism  at  the  root  of  all 
pride. 

But  it  is  not  only  uncontradicted  lordship  that 
tends  to  run  into  godlessness  ;  unlimited  liberty 
also  has  its  freaks.  There  is  an  atheism  of  demo- 
cracy, no  less  than  of  despotism.  Every  extreme 
of  self-assertion,  or,  as  the  Brahmans  would  ex- 


52      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

press  it,  the  attempt  to  make  an  independent  I, 
whether  by  violently  overriding  every  other  body, 
or  by  asserting  an  absolute  independence  for  each 
individual,  is  a  rebellion  against  the  firm  concate- 
nation of  closely  subordinated  units  of  which  the 
social  framework  is  composed.  From  extreme 
democracy,  as  from  a  hotbed,  atheism  in  its  rank- 
est stage  naturally  shoots  up.  And,  accordingly, 
whether  it  be  in  the  subtle  disputations  of  ancient 
glib-tongued  Athens,  or  on  the  fiery  rim  of  mod- 
ern French  revolutionary  craters,  or  on  the  more 
innocent  platform  of  London  East-End  Sabbath- 
evening  orations,  this  hideous  monstrosity  parades 
itself  with  observation.  How,  indeed,  should  it 
be  otherwise?  There  is  nothing  in  the  idea  of 
mere  liberty  to  create  the  feeling  of  reverence  ; 
the  desire  of  unlimited  liberty  is  an  essentially 
selfish  feeling,  and  has  no  regard  for  any  Power 
from  above,  that  might  impose  silence  on  each 
windy  self-proclaimer.  The  fundamental  maxim 
of  all  pure  democracy  is  simply  this — **  I  am  as 
good  as  you,  and  perhaps  a  Httle  better  ;  I  ac- 
knowledge nobody  as  my  master,  whether  in 
heaven  above  or  on  earth  beneath  ;  I  will  not  be 
fettered."  This  natural  connection  between  de- 
mocracy and  irreverence  it  was  that  caused  Plato 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  53 

to  make  the  observation,  that  even  the  dogs  in 
Athens  had  a  certain  look  of  impertinence  about 
them  which  was  not  observed  in  Sparta.*  And 
Aristophanes,  that  large-viewed  spectator  of  the 
strange  and  troubled  times  in  which  he  lived,  in  his 
wise  burlesque,  called  The  Clouds^  introduces  a  de- 
mocratic and  sophist-trained  young  Hopeful,  cun- 
ningly arguing  himself  free  from  all  the  restraints 
of  filial  duty,  and  making  disobedience  to  parents 
one  of  the  household  Hberties  which  unfettered  de- 
mocracy was  to  achieve.  Quite  consistently  too. 
The  insubordinate  and  rebellious  instinct  which 
denies  God  in  heaven,  and  the  king  upon  the 
throne,  cannot  long  tolerate  the  restraints  imposed 
by  the  natural  authority  of  the  father,  and  the 
rules  of  domestic  disciphne.  There  is,  indeed,  no 
cry  more  false,  more  delusive,  more  contrary  to 
the  eternal  nature  of  things,  than  that  which  mod- 
ern democracy  has  chosen  for  its  favourite  watch- 
word— Liberty.  No  doubt  the  word  has  a  mean- 
ing, and  a  mighty  one,  when  opposed  to  all  unnat- 
ural restrictions  of  the  healthy  development  of 
any  creature  ;  the  instinct  of  individual  self-asser- 
tion that  makes  a  slave  burst  his  bonds,  or  a  cap- 

*  Republic. 


54     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

tlve  escape  from  his  prison,  will  always  secure 
sympathy.  But  beyond  this,  in  the  organization 
of  social  life,  liberty  has  very  little  to  do.  On  the 
contrary,  the  whole  history  of  civilisation  is  a 
record  of  successive  limitations  of  liberty,  which 
we  call  laws.  An  old  Scythian  nomad,  or  modern 
gipsy,  encamped  on  a  Highland  moor,  and  warm- 
ing himself  with  the  scattered  spoils  of  the  old 
pine  forest,  is  a  much  more  free  man  than  any 
modern  citizen  of  the  most  free  country  in  Europe. 
The  civilised  man  grows,  not  by  -a  large  irregular 
liberty,  but  by  the  wise  limitation  of  his  range 
and  the  fruitful  husbandry  of  his  resources.  The 
first  condition  of  all  effective  social  organization  is 
discipline  ;  but  discipline  implies  subordination  ; 
and  subordination  means  the  recognition  of  a 
supreme  authority.  Destroy  all  reverence  for 
such  authority,  and  you  produce  that  feverish, 
troubled,  chaotic  state  of  society  which  spends  its 
force  in  continual  convulsions  and  revolutions  ; 
while  in  the  individual  mind  you  beget  that 
wanton  revelling  in  the  idea  of  unfettered  individ- 
ualism which  wastes  itself  in  noisy  explosions 
against  every  power  that  would  tame  the  fury  or 
prune  the  rampancy  of  an  imperious  /. 

But  unlimited   power  and  unlimited  liberty  are 


Its    Varieties  and  their  Root,         55 

not  the  only  social  forces  that  are  apt  to  run  riot 
in  the  exaggerated  assertion  of  the  individual,  and 
the  negation  of  all  superhuman  authority.  There 
is  the  irreverence  begotten  of  the  pride  of  intellect. 
In  the  exercise  of  intellectual,  as  of  moral  or  phy- 
sical power,  there  is  apt  to  arise  a  certain  selfish 
satisfaction  in  the  exclusive  dominancy  of  the 
knowing  faculty  above  whatever  else  constitutes 
the  sum  of  existence  in  the  universe.  Knowledge, 
of  course,  does  not  directly  produce  irreligion,  or 
extinguish  piety ;  on  the  contrary,  the  more  a 
wise  man  knows  of  the  universe,  the  more  is  he 
lost  in  admiration  of  its  excellence,  and  in  wonder 
at  its  mystery  ;  for,  as  Plato  said,  wonder  is  truly 
a  philosophical  feeling  ;  and  to  be  full  of  a  living 
knowledge  of  things  as  they  are,  in  their  proper 
relations  and  proportions,  is  simply  to  wonder  and 
to  worship.  But  the  knowing  faculty  is  not  the 
whole  of  a  living  man,  and  to  bring  forth  its 
healthy  fruits  it  must  go  hand-in-hand  with  a  rich 
moral  nature  ;  divorced  from  this,  that  will  cer- 
tainly show  itself  which  St.  Paul  enunciates : 
"  Knowledge  puffeth  up,  but  charity  edifieth." 
In  the  exercise  of  the  mind's  cognitive  faculty,  iso- 
lated from  a  complete  and  well-balanced  humanity, 
there  is  certainly  no  direct  nourishment  to  the  feel- 


56      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

ing  of  reverence.  Who  is  more  sharp  than  a  law- 
yer ?  Who  is  more  clever  than  a  weekly  reviewer  ? 
Mere  knowledge  is  only  one  element  in  the  build- 
ing  up  of  a  sound  mind.  It  is  not  merely  that  you 
know,  but  what  you  know,  and  how  you  know, 
and  how  you  use  your  knowledge,  that  makes 
your  knowledge  a  power — a  legitimate  power,  let 
us  rather  say — otherwise  it  is  a  usurpation,  and, 
like  all  illegitimate  powers,  smothers  that  which  it 
ought  to  protect.  Everybody  has  read  Goethe's 
*'  Faust."  What  does  that  self- vendition  of  a 
German  soul  to  the  Powers  of  evil  mean  ?  Faust, 
the  speculative  sinner,  does  not  go  to  ruin,  like 
Don  Juan,  in  the  Spanish  opera,  because  he  flings 
himself  without  hmitation  into  the  ocean  of  mere 
sensual  indulgence,  putting  his  private  pleasure  in 
the  place  of  God's  public  order,  and  thus  becom- 
ing practically  an  atheist  and  a  servant  of  the 
devil  ;  but  he  goes  to  ruin,  because  he  will  not 
accept  the  bounds  of  thinking  by  which  all  finite 
being  is  necessarily  confined.  He  must  know 
everything  ;  all  the  secret  machinery  of  the  uni- 
verse must  lie  open  to  his  gaze ;  the  quick  light- 
ning of  the  blood's  shooting  through  the  mysteri- 
ous alleys  of  vitality,  must  be  measured  by  his 
mortal  optics  ;  all  which  simply  means,  he  scorns 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  57 

to  be  a  man  with  men  ;  he  will  be  a  god  with 
gods  ;  he  will  be  his  own  god.  He  sets  himself 
above  the  legitimate  authority  of  that  alone  self- 
existent  power  which  creates  by  limitation  ;  and 
in  doing  so,  he  hands  himself  over  to  the  destruc- 
tive Power  which,  by  denying  limitation,  produces 
what  such  denial  alone  can  produce,  dissolution 
and  chaos.  Thus,  in  all  intellectual,  as  in  all 
other  pride,  the  root  of  atheism  lies. 

But  there  are  various  kinds  of  knowledge  ;  and 
of  all  kinds,  that  which  has  long  had  the  most 
evil  reputation  of  begetting  atheism  is  Physical 
Science.  Tres  7nedici  duo  athei.  Is  this  a  mere 
vulgar  calumny,  or  is  there  any  noticeable  truth  at 
the  bottom  of  it  ?  Very  few  such  current  prov- 
erbs are  churned  out  of  nothing  ;  and  that  there  is 
a  certain  connection  between  physical  science  and 
atheism,  the  history  of  philosophy  abundantly 
declares.  Democritus  of  Abdera,  the  reputed 
father  of  the  atomistic  philosophy,  afterwards 
taught  in  the  Attic  gardens  of  Gargettus  with  such 
applause  by  Epicurus,  was  the  greatest  naturalist 
of  his  age  ;  and  whatever  may  have  been  the  per- 
sonal opinions  of  the  laughing  sage  with  regard  to 
the  gods,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  philoso- 
phical system  expounded  by  his  Attic  disciple  was 
3* 


58     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

utterly  godless — worse  than  godless,  indeed  ;  for 
it  is  better  to  deny  the  gods  altogether,  than  to 
shunt  them  off  into  a  cloudy  corner  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  give  them  nothing  to  do  but  drink 
nectar  and  laugh  at  limping  Vulcan.  The  expla- 
nation of  the  phenomena  of  the  cosmos,  by  the 
various  action  and  interaction  of  mere  force  and 
form  which  is  the  sum  of  the  Epicurean  doctrine, 
is  pure  atheism,  and  indeed  seems  to  have  been 
meant  to  put  religion  out  of  the  world  altogether  ; 
as  we  see  plainly  enough  from  the  tone  of  the 
opening  verses  of  Lucretius,  in  his  celebrated 
Epicurean  poem  : 

*'  Tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum  !  " 
*'  Such  cruel  woes  on  mortals  came  from  grim  religion's  power." 

And  a  century  before  the  time  of  Epicurus  we 
find  Aristophanes,  in  that  most  intellectual  of  farces 
already  named,  giving  the  most  emphatic  promi- 
nence to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  physical  philoso- 
phers who,  with  their  talk  about  atoms  and  vortices, 
and  collisions  and  entanglements,  and  general  tur- 
moil in  the  battle  of  blind  forces,  were  doing  away 
with  the  notion  of  Jove  altogether,  and  substituting 
happy  accident  for  wise  Providence.     How  far  there 


Its    Varieties  and  their  Root,  59 

was  a  fair  apology,  or  at  least  a  plausible  palliative, 
for  the  physicists  who  made  broad  the  phylacteries 
of  this  sort  of  talk  long  ago,  we  shall  afterwards 
inquire.  For  those  who  revive  the  doctrine  of  the 
construction  of  a  beautifully  ordered  world  by  the 
fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms  without  mind,  now- 
adays, there  is  certainly  no  excuse  ;  but  what  con- 
cerns us  specially  to  state  here  is,  that  there  is 
something  in  the  researches  of  physical  science,  at 
least  in  certain  conditions  of  the  intellectual  atmo- 
sphere, not  apparently  favourable  to  the  growth  of 
piety  arid  the  cultivation  of  religious  reverence. 
In  reading  certain  of  the  psalms  of  David,  which 
must  be  quite  familiar  to  every  English  church- 
goer, one  feels  as  if  walking  through  a  splendid 
picture-gallery,  where  not  only  the  pictures  are 
beautiful  and  grand  beyond  the  power  of  human 
description,  but,  to  compensate  as  it  were  for  the 
feebleness  of  the  attempt  to  describe  them,  the  face 
of  the  divine  artist  is  made  to  shine  forth  constant- 
ly behind  the  frame,  and  give  a  living  inspiration 
and  an  intelligent  presence  to  the  scene.  But  in 
not  a  few  of  our  modern  physical  science  books, 
how  different  is  the  feeling  !  if,  indeed,  there  is  any 
feeling  in  the  matter  at  all — anything  beyond  a 
curious  fingering  of  wretched  dumb  details  utterly 


6o      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

destitute  of  soul.  Whatever  is  in  the  book,  de- 
pend upon  it  God  is  not  there.  You  will  hear  no 
end  of  talk  about  laws  and  forces,  developments 
and  evolutions,  metamorphic  forms,  transmuted 
energies,  and  what  not ;  but  it  is  all  dead — at  least 
all  blind.  For  seeing  intellect  and  shaping  reason 
there  is  no  place  in  such  systems.  It  is  a  mere 
shallow  superstition,  according  to  these  gentlemen, 
to  imagine  any  grand  design  in  the  system  of  the 
Cosmos.  There  is  no  construction  ;  there  is  only 
a  conglomeration,  or  at  best  a  concatenation. 
That  such  Epicurean  views  are  sported  nowadays 
on  public  platforms  admits  of  no  question  ;  that, 
when  philosophically  tested,  and  not  allowed  to 
veil  their  absurdity  in  a  blue  mist  of  fine  phrases, 
they  yield  nothing  but  a  physical-science  variety 
of  atheism,  is  equally  certain  ;  and  they  naturally 
provoke  us  to  the  inquiry  how  such  unreasoned 
drivel,  after  having  been  exploded  for  two  thousand 
years,  should  be  revived,  and  planted  on  the 
platform  of  boastful  science  as  a  new  revelation 
which  poor  benighted  humanity  should  now  at 
length  receive  with  most  grateful  bewonderment. 
Of  this  lamentable  upshot  of  so  much  high-sound- 
ing talk,  there  are  no  doubt  several  causes  ;  but 
under  the  present  head  of  our  discourse  there  fall 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root.  6i 

only  two  to  be  specially  mentioned.  First,  as  be- 
fore said,  because  the  highest  cognitions  are  never 
reached  by  the  mere  exercise  of  the  knowing  facul- 
ty, on  whatever  subject  exercised.  Instincts  and 
aspirations  are  higher  than  knowledge  ;  and  the 
pretensions  of  the  merely  scientific  man  to  assume 
the  dictatorship  of  things  that  be  are  not  founded 
on  nature.  Many  things  can  be  known  only  by 
being  felt ;  all  vital  forces  are  fundamentally  un- 
knowable ;  but  they  exist  not  the  less  because 
would-be  philosopher  B  or  would-be  philosopher  C 
has  no  machinery  with  which  to  measure  or  to  con- 
trol them.  Philosophy,  itself  the  most  abstract  of 
the  sciences,  must,  as  Goethe  profoundly  remarks, 
be  lived  and  loved,  not  merely  tabulated  and  talked 
about ;  and  so  those  who  parade  mere  knowledge  as 
the  one  thing  needful  are  found  at  last,  as  the  same 
Goethe  says,  counting  the  parts  with  their  fingers 
when  the  -spirit  has  fled.  To  the  meagreness  and 
inadequacy  of  these  knowledge-mongers  Words- 
worth finely  alludes  in  his  description  of  the  various 
classes  of  men  who  might  be  showing  themselves 
beside  the  green  sod  of  a  poet's  grave  : — 

*'  A  moralist  perchance  appears, 

Led,  heaven  knows  how,  to  this  poor  sod : 
And  he  hath  neither  eyes  nor  ears, 
Himself  his  world  and  his  own  god 


62      The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism. 

"  One  to  whose  smooth-fubbed  soul  can  cling 
Nor  form  nor  feeling,  great  or  small ; 
A  reasoning  self-sufficing  thing, 
An  intellectual  all  m  all." 


Here  the  great  philosophic  poet  clearly  indicates 
that  without  reverence  and  love,  the  mere  man  of 
science  remains  incapable  of  comprehending  either 
humanity  or  divinity,  becomes  practically  his  own 
god ;  and  is  in  tone  and  temper,  if  not  in  abstract 
speculation,  an  atheist.  But  it  is  of  the  physical 
science  men  that  we  are  talking  at  present ;  and 
these  also  the  thoughtful  bard  of  the  Lakes  shows 
out  from  the  sacred  presence  of  a  true  poet  of 
nature,  with  a  sharp  tone  of  quiet  contempt,  as 
follows  : — 


"  Physician  art  thou  ?    one  all  eyes  ? 
Philosopher  ?  a  fingering  slave. 
One  that  could  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave  !  " 


Of  course  general  charges  against  whole  classes 
of  men  are  not  for  a  moment  to  be  understood 
here ;  but  the  writer  takes  a  strongly-marked  man 
of  the  type,  and  this,  like  ''  the  girl  of  the  period," 
serves  the  purpose,  though  a  man  may  live  largely 
in  the  period  without  perhaps  meeting  him  or  her 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root,  6^^ 

more  than  once.  But  the  physicist,  by  the  very 
nature  of  his  occupations,  is  unfavourably  situated 
in  regard  to  the  knowledge  of  spiritual  things.  He 
is  all  eyes  and  all  fingers  ;  and  confessedly  neither 
with  the  fleshly  eye  can  one  see  God,  nor  with  the 
fleshly  finger  can  one  handle  Him.  And  so  it 
comes  about  that  a  physicist,  when  left  to  the 
meagre  resources  of  his  own  science  of  externali- 
ties, may  come  not  to  beheve  in  mind  at  all,  and 
of  course  to  deny  God.  Let  him  torture  nature  as 
he  will,  strike  out  all  sorts  of  flashing  electricities, 
pry  curiously  into  the  secret  spring-work  of  vital 
machinery  by  monstrous  vivisections,  yet  he  can- 
not lay  his  finger  on  God.  There  is  therefore  no 
God — nothing  that  he  can  lay  his  finger  on  ;  there- 
fore nothing  at  all  ;  only  talk  about  laws  and 
forces,  and  an  eternal  blind  struggle  of  the  stronger 
to  kick  the  weaker  out  of  the  room.  Such  is  the 
sad  fashion  by  which  the  study  of  mere  physical 
science,  unelevated  by  a  high  religious  philosophy, 
runs  into  the  blank  vacuities  and  Wind  fortuities 
of  atheism.  It  must  always  be  so.  No  pyramid 
ever  stood  upon  its  apex,  and  no  reasonable  ex- 
planation of  a  reasonable  world  can  be  evolved 
from  a  tabulation  of  mere  externalities.  The  king- 
dom  of  true   knowledge,  like    the    kingdom    of 


64     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

heaven,  is  within.  No  philosophy  worth  the 
name  was  ever  arrived  at  by  external  induction. 
By  induction  dead  shells  may  be  gathered,  but  the 
life  of  the  soft-bodied  creature  which  inhabits  the 
shell  is  produced  by  the  living  power  of  Divine 
Reason,  the  soul  of  this  mysteriously-ordered 
world,  which  eludes  all  microscopes  to  behold,  and 
defies  all  pincers  to  grasp. 

I  have  spoken  hitherto  mainly  about  the  men  of 
physical  science,  because  since  Bacon,  they  have 
been  making  large  their  phylacteries  in  this  coun- 
try, and  stirring  the  minds  of  men  wonderfully. 
There  are  reasons  for  this  ;  and  for  the  brilliant 
antediluvian,  pre-Adamitic  and  other  discoveries 
which  they  have  made,  we  may  feel  disposed 
kindly  to  forgive  them  a  Httle  nonsense.  A  wise 
man  on  a  hobby-horse  is  never  an  edifying  specta- 
cle ;  but  the  creature  delights  himself  for  a  lifetime 
perhaps,  and  we  are  amused  for  an  hour.  Let  us 
now  look  in  another  direction.  There  is  no  non- 
sense like  learned  nonsense  ;  and  of  all  learned 
nonsense,  metaphysical  nonsense  is  the  most 
extravagant.  Of  course  among  other  forms  of 
insane  abstract  speculation,  we  have  metaphysical 
atheism  ;  and  the  father  of  this  sort  of  nonsense, 
in  modern  times,  was  a  Scotsman,  David  Hume. 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root.  65 

No  man,  I  presume,  who  has  read  his  works  will 
deny  that  Hume  was  a  very  clever  fellow,  a  very 
agreeable,  gentlemanly  fellow  too,  and  a  man  who 
combined  a  knowledge  of  books  with  a  knowledge 
of  men  to  an  extent  very  rarely  exhibited  in  the 
country  which  produced  him  ;  still  he  talked  non- 
sense about  causation,  and  about  the  ultimate 
cause ;  and  this  nonsense  is  to  be  traced  in  the 
case  of  the  metaphysician,  as  in  that  of  the  physi- 
cist, ultimately  to  a  want  of  reverence  in  his  char- 
acter, aided  by  a  certain  flatness,  and  shallowness, 
and  want  of  earnestness  in  the  age  to  which  he 
belonged.  With  regard  to  metaphysical  nonsense 
generally,  and  the  atheism  which  it  will  occasion- 
ally produce,  we  must  bear  in  mind  what  Professor 
Ferrier  says,  in  the  first  chapters  of  his  profound 
work  on  Consciousness.  Of  all  men,  says  that 
subtle  and  substantial  thinker,  the  metaphysician 
is  most  apt  to  run  himself  into  the  blind  alley  of 
some  inextricable  absurdity ;  for  he  aims  at  ex- 
plaining the  very  complex  machinery  of  the  vasty 
universe  by  some  one  favourite  principle,  or 
method  ;  and,  if  this  principle  be  either  wrong  in 
itself,  or  wrongly  applied,  or  if  it  contains  only 
one  half  the  truth,  or  only  a  certain  attitude  and 
aspect  of  the  truth,  the  whole  of  the  ingeniously 


66      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

spun  system  becomes  a  gossamer  web,  not  strong 
enough  to  hold  a  fly.  What  Hume  said,  for  in- 
stance, about  the  comparison  of  a  piece  of  human 
architecture,  with  the  architecture  of  the  universe, 
that  we  know  everything  about  the  one,  and  can 
know  nothing  about  the  other,  is  true  only  m  so 
far  as  organized  growth  is  a  much  more  excellent 
and  a  much  more  divine  thing  than  the  best  com- 
pacted masonry  ;  manufactures  of  all  kinds  we  can 
produce  ;  growth  of  any  kind,  from  the  branching 
foliage  of  tropical  vegetation  to  the  tiniest  spot  of 
grey  lichen  on  a  bare  rock,  defies  the  most  cun- 
ning of  our  scientific  appliances.  Here  no  doubt 
is  a  gap  ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  the  grand  con- 
gruities  of  eternal  Reason  shine  out  as  plainly  in 
the  divine  architecture  as  in  the  human  ;  and  the 
intellectual  process  of  the  universe,  which  we  call 
growth,  is  not  the  less  intelligible  because  it  is  not 
merely  mechanical,  but  only  the  more  wonderful. 
Another  of  the  pretty  sophisms,  with  which  the 
Scottish  sceptic,  as  we  remarked  in  the  last  chap- 
ter, strangled  his  healthy  human  instinct,  was  that 
about  causation.  Of  course  what  many  superficial 
observers  call  a  cause,  is  only  a  point  in  an  invari- 
able sequence  ;  it  needed  no  philosopher  to  tell  us 
this ;  but  when  he,  and  a  whole  school  of  meagre 


Its   Varieties  aizd  their  Root,  ^j 

puzzlers  after  him,  told  us  seriously  that  causation 
means   only  invariable  sequence,  we  are   inclined 
to   subscribe  to   any  nonsense  in  the   Council   of 
Trent,  and  to  any  horrors  in  the  most  damnatory 
creed,  rather  than  fill  our  bellies   with  such   East 
wind,  and  believe  it   to  contain   any  virtue   that 
makes  warm  blood.     There  is  not  a  sane  man  out 
of  Bedlam  who  will  not  confess,  when  the  thing  is 
properly  put  before  him,  that  the  invariability  of 
any  sequence  is  just  the  very  thing  that  renders 
the  idea  of  a  cause  necessary  :  as  necessary  in  fact 
to  the  constitution  of  a  reasoned  universe,  as  some 
fundamental  axiom  is  to  the  proof  of  a  mathemati- 
cal theorem.     But  your  metaphysician  will  not  see 
this  ;  he  must  have  a  special  transcendental  region 
for   himself,  where  he   may  make   unhindered  all 
sorts  of  abstract  postures  and  somersets  and  curious 
antic  wriggling,  at  which  He  who  sitteth  in  heaven 
shall  laugh  ;  and  so  rather  than  believe  a  creative 
mind  with  Moses,  or  a  plastic  reason  with  Plato, 
he  sets   himself  in  a   pretentious   wordy   way  to 
evolve  all  things  out  of  a  dark  hollow  centre  of 
nothingness,  and  bind  them  together  with  a  girdle 
of  black    impenetrable    necessity.       Surely   wise 
men,  who  talk  such  things,  have  been  taken  in  the 
net  of  their  own  subtleties,  while  out  of  the  mouths 


68     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

of  babes  and  sucklings,  in  modern  as  in  ancient 
times,  God  hath  perfected  praise. 

It  is  always  more  safe,  in  matters  of  healthy- 
human  sentiment,  to  trust  to  poets  than  to  philo- 
sophers. A  living  sympathy  with  nature  never 
can  lead  you  far  wrong.  Men  of  the  calibre  of 
Homer,  Shakespeare,  Robert  Burns,  and  Walter 
Scott,  never  strangle  the  broad  realities  of  nature 
with  ingenious  and  unsubstantial  subtleties.  A 
poet  is  naturally  a  rehgious  animal ;  we  shall  not, 
therefore,  presumably  expect  atheism  from  him  ; 
nevertheless,  we  had  Lucretius ;  and  some  of  our 
most  brilliant  notorieties  in  the  modern  world  of 
song,  are  not  the  most  notable  for  piety.  Let  us 
inquire,  therefore,  lastly,  by  what  extravagant  and 
erring  flight  the  bright-winged  creature  called  a 
poet  may  sometimes  be  charmed  away  into  the 
dim  limbos  and  dark  vortices  of  a  godless  cosmos. 
Other  causes  of  such  bhnd  plunges  will  be  noticed 
afterwards ;  the  present  order  of  our  discourse 
only  calls  on  us  to  remark,  that  there  may  be  an 
idolatry  of  the  imaginative,  as  well  as  of  the  know- 
ing faculty.  Reverence  no  doubt  is  as  necessary 
to  the  complete  poet  as  love  ;  but  just  as  a  man 
may  have  a  grand  swing  of  the  imaginative  facul- 
ty, and  yet   be  wayward,   wilful,  and   extremely 


Its   Varieties  and  their  Root.  69 

selfish — like  Lord  Byron — so  it  is  possible  fbr  a 
rhymer  to  have  in  his  brain-chamber  a  perfect 
kaleidoscope  of  shifting  beauties,  and  yet  lack  that 
veneration  for  the  grand  central  truth  of  the  uni- 
verse which  gives  elevation  to  all  beauty,  and 
significance  to  all  variety.  The  Greeks  had  one 
very  valuable  idea,  that  a  poet  was  always  a  o-o0o9, 
a  wise  man,  and  the  best  definition  of  poetry,  to 
suit  their  practice,  would  be  harmonious  wisdom. 
But  in  our  age  of  multiplied  specialties,  we  are 
too  apt  to  run  after  dexterity  in  artistical  exhibi- 
tion, without  regard  to  health  of  tone,  sanity  of 
meaning,  or  naturalness  of  expression.  Poetry,  of 
course,  as  well  as  music  and  dancing,  may  luxuri- 
ate amply  in  this  direction  ;  and  the  sacred  art  of 
the  poet,  of  which  the  virtue  is  by  truthful  and 
vivid  pictures  to  teach  the  wisdom  of  life,  and 
justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  may  degenerate 
into  a  succession  of  dexterous  pyrotechnic  dis- 
plays, and  startling  explosions  of  brilliant  egotism, 
in  which  no  worship  dwells.  Thus  a  practical  di- 
vorce between  poetry  and  piety  may  take  place  ; 
and  though  no  direct  war  be  proclaimed  against 
religion — as  in  Lucretius — a  pious  man  feels  a  sort 
of  want  in  the  effusions  of  poets  of  this  defective 
type,  somewhat  as  if  one  were  to  walk  through 


70     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

Windsor  Palace,  and  see  splendid  traces  of  every- 
thing but  the  Queen.  Let  the  young  poet,  there- 
fore, beware  of  glorying  too  much  in  his  strength. 
A  man  may  do  anything,  said  the  wise  old  octo- 
genarian of  Weimar,  except  live  at  random,  sich 
gehen  lassen.  Floating  about  on  rosy  clouds  for 
mere  self-delectation,  or  flashing  forth  a  series  of 
iridescent  coruscations  for  the  amusement  of  those 
who  seek  for  excitement,  rather  than  improve- 
ment, will  never  exhaust  the  function  of  *'the 
pious  bards  who  speak  things  worthy  of  Phoebus." 
To  attain  this  dignity  there  must  be  a  consecration 
of  the  whole  man,  his  natural  genius,  and  his 
acquired  dexterities,  to  the  service  of  the  great 
Architect,  in  whose  living  temple  the  highest 
honour  the  best  of  us  can  achieve  is  to  be  service- 
able stones. 

Thus  much  for  atheism,  speculative  or  practical, 
declared  and  marked,  or  only  insinuated  and  indi- 
cated, when  viewed  as  proceeding  from  the  want 
of  a  root  of  reverence  in  the  soul.  In  the  next 
two  chapters  I  shall  consider  the  phenomena  of 
this  abnormal  state  of  mind,  where  it  seems  to 
spring  rather  from  an  exaggeration,  or  misdirec- 
tion, than  from  a  deficiency  of  the  noble  emotion 
of  wonder  ;  and  I  shall  then  conclude  with  con- 


Its    Varieties  and  their  Root.  71 

sidering  how  far  atheism,  or  at  least  an  absence  of 
natural  piety,  may  in  many  cases  be  only  the 
rebound  of  an  ill-balanced  mind  from  the  asperi- 
ties and  the  rigidities  of  some  local  orthodoxy. 
If  there  is  rebellion  anywhere  in  a  State,  the  Gov- 
ernment is  seldom  altogether  free  from  blame. 


CHAPTER   IV. 


POLYTHEISM. 


**  Fragilis  et  laboriosa  mortalitas  in  partes  ista  digessit,  infirmi- 
tatis  suae  memor,  ut  portionibus  coleret  quisque  quo  maxime  iiidi- 
geret." — Pliny. 

POLYTHEISM  is  not  atheism  certainly  on  the 
very  face  of  the  word  ;  many  gods  can  never 
mean  no  god  ;  and  therefore  the  intelligent  reader 
may  justly  ask  what  is  it  doing  here  ?  The  answer 
is  simply  this,  that  we  have  to  do  in  this  discourse 
not  merely  with  abstract  beliefs,  but  with  practical 
consequences  which  flow  from  them  ;  not  with  the 
abstract  denial  of  a  God,  but  with  the  concrete 
existence  of  such  fancies,  notions,  or  dogmas  about 
God,  as  practically  result  in  a  denial  of  a  divine 
order  and  beauty  and  harmony  in  that  reasoned 
unity  of  things  which  we  call  the  world.  When  in 
a  well-known  passage  of  his  epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians  (ii.  12)  St.  Paul  talks  of  the  members  of  the 


Polytheism,  73 

Christian  Church  in  that  part  of  the  East  as  having 
lived  formerly  the  slaves  of  all  sorts  of  base  lusts 
and  passions  without  God — aQeoi — and  without 
hope  in  the  world — though  the  word  aQeo^  is  no 
doubt  frequently  used  by  classical  writers  to  signify 
a  man  holding  dogmatically  what  we  call  atheistical 
opinions — there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
had  any  such  shallow  dogmatists  specially  in  view ; 
but  a  man  with  him  is  an  atheist,  even  though  per- 
haps paying  worship  to  some  gods,  or  demons — 
like  the  Ceylonese — who  as  a  matter  of  moral  fact 
shows  by  all  his  conduct  that  he  believes  in  no 
established  order  of  a  great  social  brotherhood  of 
men  born  of  a  common  father,  but  recognises  only 
his  personal  will,  and  special  passion  as  the  legiti- 
mate motive  power  of  human  conduct.  Or,  to 
take  a  simile  from  political  life,  that  man  is  a  traitor 
and  a  rebel  not  only  who  pastes  a  public  proclama- 
tion up  in  the  market-place  that  the  king  has  no 
right  to  reign,  but  much  more  rather  the  man  who 
refuses  to  pay  the  taxes,  disdains  the  accepted 
tokens  of  homage,  and  draws  his  sword  for  the 
head  of  his  own  clan,  and  in  the  cause  of  his  own 
kinship  only,  not  for  the  head  of  the  State.  So, 
if  the  celebrated  Macdonald  of  the  Isles  lost  his 
haughty  position  in  the  Hebridean  seas,  was  fined 
4 


74      The  Nattiral  History  of  Atheism, 

of  his  lordship,  and  swept  all  his  clan  with  himself 
into  ruin  as  the  natural  issue  of  his  reiterated 
attempts  to  shake  off  the  legitimate  authority  of 
the  monarch  to  whom  he  had  sworn  fealty,  in  the 
same  way  it  may  be  in  the  religious  world,  that 
if  any  people  prostrate  themselves  before  gods 
which  are  no  gods,  and  whose  intervention  hinders 
the  true  God  from  being  seen  and  recognised,  they 
may  be  guilty  of  a  conduct  which  Is  practically  as 
bad,  or  even  worse,  than  absolute  atheism.  For 
religious  atheism — that  is,  atheistical  doctrine — 
means  only  an  absence  of  all  positive  theological 
contents,  and  may  be  quite  consistent,  as  In  the 
case  of  Buddha  to  be  presently  considered,  with  a 
strict  observance  of  the  great  moral  laws  that  bind 
society  together,  and  even  with  a  belief  in  the 
necessary  moral  consequences  of  actions,  entailed 
from  generation  to  generation — as,  indeed,  the 
Buddhists  believe  of  all  men  most  firmly  ;  but  the 
misdirected  reverence  and  utterly  unreasonable 
religiosity  of  some  forms  of  superstition,  may  in 
its  effect  on  social  life  amount  to  what  the  mathe- 
maticians call  a  minus  quantity,  that  Is,  something 
worse  than  nothing ;  as  certain  kinds  of  food, 
though  not  immediately  poisonous,  may  by  the 
presence  of  some  element  unfavourable  to  a  healthy 


Polytheism,  75 

vitality,  lead  by  sure  degrees  to  the  disruption  of 
the  system.  This  consideration  it  was  which  led 
Plutarch  and  other  wise  ancients  to  discuss  the 
question  whether  atheism  or  superstition  is  the 
more  pernicious  ? — a  question  which  manifestly 
admits  of  no  clear  answer  ;  for,  while  on  the  one 
hand  there  may  be  an  intellectual  atheism  associ- 
ated with  so  much  practical  goodness  as  to  make 
it  socially  innocuous,  there  may,  on  the  other 
hand,  be  a  moral  atheism  ramping  so  wildly 
through  all  the  organism  of  society,  and  disturbing 
the  machinery  of  human  life  to  such  a  degree  as 
to  render  many  kinds  of  degrading  superstition  less 
dangerous.  Our  inquiry,  therefore,  into  the  origin 
and  character  of  polytheism,  as  connected  with 
atheism,  will  tend  to  bring  into  view  two  important 
aspects  of  that  misdirected  reverence,  too  often 
confounded ;  first,  that  aspect  of  polytheism  in 
which  the  good  so  predominates  as  to  make  it  in 
a  social  point  of  view  emphatically  preferable  to  all 
forms  of  atheism  ;  and  secondly,  that  more  de- 
graded aspect  which  presents  itself  when  neither 
poetical  grace,  nor  gracious  moral  influences,  nor 
an  underlying  consciousness  of  dimly-shadowed 
monotheism,  contributes  anything  to  redeem  the 
absurdity,  or  mitigate  the  baseness  of  a  reverence 


76     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

fathered  by  fear,  and  a  worship  inspired  by  selfish- 
ness. And  in  setting  forth  the  most  obvious  prop- 
ositions belonging  to  this  interesting  theme,  if  we 
confine  ourselves  mainly  to  illustrations  from  the 
Greek  religion,  it  will  be  because  we  shall  thus  be 
using  materials  with  which  all  educated  persons  in 
this  country  are  to  a  certain  extent  familiar,  and 
in  the  right  theological  use  of  which  they  will  natu- 
rally feel  an  interest. 

On  the  origin  and  significance  of  the  mythologi- 
cal theology  of  the  Greeks  and  other  polytheistic 
races,  no  small  amount  of  nonsense,  both  learned 
and  unlearned,  will  be  found  loading  the  library- 
shelves  ;  and  this  is  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at, 
considering  that  the  most  original  and  imaginative 
thinkers  on  the  subject  often  want  the  requisite 
learning ;  while  men  of  learning  too  frequently 
are  destitute  not  only  of  that  fine  feeling  for  the 
poetry  and  piety  of  nature  which  belongs  specially 
to  all  mythological  interpretation,  but  of  the 
sound  common  sense  and  freedom  from  favourite 
fancies  which  is  necessary  to  the  recognition  of 
truth  in  any  quarter.  But  after  the  full  and  thor- 
ough discussion  which  Greek  mythology  has  re- 
ceived during  the  present  century,  specially  from 
the   Germans,  and  the  wider  range  of  induction 


Polytheism,  jj 

opened  up  to  scholars  by  the  Oriental  excursions 
of  the  Sanscritists  and  other  comparative  philolo- 
gers,  we  have  no  difficulty  now  in  planting  our 
foot  on  at  least  one  broad  basis  of  scientific  cer- 
tainty in  this  field.  Favourite  theories  and  darling 
speculations  of  various  kinds  being  blown  away, 
a  sound  eye  can  discern  clearly  the  great  physical 
forces  of  nature  as  lying  at  the  root  of  the  luxu- 
riant growth  of  motley  and  grotesque,  or  graceful, 
beautiful,  and  sublime  figures  which  composed 
the  popular  Pantheons  of  India  and  Greece.  Not 
that  'other  elements  sometimes  did  not  enter  into 
the  composition  of  this  popular  theology;  but  in 
the  main  the  forces  of  external  nature,  figured 
by  imagination  and  fired  by  passion,  formed  a 
groundwork  of  all  polytheistic  idolatry,  at  once 
the  most  natural  and  the  most  extensive.  Let  us 
endeavour  to  realise  to  ourselves  how  this  took 
place.  Let  us  drop  out  in  imagination  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  one  true  God  from  the  centre  of  our 
fundamental  ideas  with  regard  to  the  Universe — 
of  which  ideas  the  unity  of  the  Divine  nature  in  all 
Christian  countries  forms  now  the  keystone — and 
see  what  remains.  Imagine  a  creature  such  as 
man  in  the  first  stages  of  society  historically  was — 
of  quick  sensibility,  vivid  imagination,  hasty  pas- 


78     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

sion,  overpowering  emotion,  limited  knowledge, 
and  small  speculation  —  sometimes,  no  doubt, 
grandly  conscious  of  his  own  power  as  a  living 
being  of  great  energy  and  scope,  but  not  rarely 
possessed,  or  it  may  be  oppressed,  by  the  feeling 
of  his  own  feebleness,  helplessness,  and  depend- 
ence. Dependence  on  what?  Place  yourself  in 
thought  in  the  middle  of  a  broad  dreary  moor 
during  a  thunderstorm,  or  on  the  surge  of  a  foam- 
ing sea  fretted  with  reefs,  in  a  ship  without  a 
pilot,  or  at  the  bottom  of  a  smoking  mountain, 
spouting  sulphurous  clouds,  and  pouring  forth 
rivers  of  red  molten  rock  over  the  works  and 
ways  of  mortal  men,  and  you  will  feel  in  a  moment 
that  your  life  is  continually  at  the  mercy  of  three 
elements— Air,  Watek,  and  FiRE,  before  whose 
manifestations  of  might  and  violence,  the  strongest 
mortal  is  as  weak  as  a  straw  in  the  whirlwind,  or  a 
worm  beneath  the  tramp  of  a  rhinoceros.  What 
then  will  a  poor,  ignorant,  helpless  creature,  with- 
out special  light,  in  these  circumstances  natur- 
ally do  ?  He  will  cry  out  and  appeal  to  the  ele- 
ment, or  the  force  behind  the  element — let  it  be 
Air,  Water,  or  Fire — with  which  he  has  for  the 
moment  to  do ;  and  this  element,  in  defect  of 
further    generalisation,    will   become    a   god ;    not 


Polytheism,  79 

the  material  element,  however,  simply  as  we  are 
apt  to  conceive  it  in  modern  language,  or  a  form 
of  what  we  call  matter,  but  the  energetic  totality 
of  the  thing  exercising  a  power,  apparently  of  a 
similar  nature  to  that  which  we  exercise  when  we 
put  forth  our  arm,  and  produce  similar  effects. 
The  Air,  therefore,  or  the  Fire,  or  the  Water,  is 
conceived  dimly  as  a  person,  at  least  as  exercising 
the  functions  of  a  person  ;  it  is  a  superhuman, 
incalculable,  transcendental  force — that  is,  com- 
paratively a  divine  power,  and  therefore  will  natur- 
ally, if  curious  reason  does  not  interfere,  be  recog- 
nised and,  by  some  sort  of  homage  or  worship, 
acknowledged  as  a  god.  And  this  hasty  gener- 
alisation, as  the  logicians  would  say,  will  have  at 
least  one  striking  fact  in  its  favour,  of  which  it  will 
require  some  considerable  advance  in  science, 
some  ripeness  in  speculation,  or  some  special 
revelation  to  rebut  the  force.  These  potent  ele- 
ments, of  which  feeble  man  seems  as  it  were  the 
sport,  do  not  by  any  means  to  the  vulgar  eye 
present  the  aspect  of  harmonious  and  concentuous 
powers  ;  they  rather  stand  forward  in  the  attitude 
of  antagonists,  to  struggle  and  to  battle  together, 
to  overwhelm,  overmaster,  neutralise  and  annihi- 
late one  another  in  a  most  unfriendly  way.     We 


So     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

are  therefore,  at  our  first  encounter  with  one  of 
these  outbursts  of  apparently  unreined  and  unruly 
power,  at  a  very  far  remove  from  the  idea  of  the 
Divine  Unity.  Thus  we  have  got,  by  a  single 
step,  at  the  constitution  of  a  separate  divine  force 
for  Air,  Water,  and  Fire,  which,  by-and-by,  the 
natural  action  of  a  vivid  imagination  will  shape 
into  the  complete  figure  of  a  thundering  Jupiter, 
an  earth-shaking  Neptune,  and  a  metal-melting 
Vulcan,  with  all  the  appropriate  badges,  weapons, 
and  appurtenances,  that  with  chastened  taste  in 
the  West  and  grotesque  symbolism  in  the  East 
would  naturally  attach  themselves  to  such  person- 
ages. 

Let  us  now  look  to  the  evidence  from  historical 
and  literary  fact.  We  had  occasion  to  mention 
already,  in  our  first  paper,  that  Homer  distinctly 
mentions  OCEAN  as  the  great  progenitor  of  the 
Hellenic  gods  ;  and,  though  this  god  was  rather  an 
antiquated  personage  in  the  days  of  the  poet,  and 
comes  up  more  as  a  sort  of  fossil  witness  or  an 
underlying  stratum  of  old  popular  tradition,  the 
famous  verse  (II.  xii.  v.  245)  in  which  his  name 
occurs  is  only  the  more  significant  as  a  stereotyped 
proof  of  the  original  element  out  of  which  the  fully 
equipped  equestrian  Poseidon  afterwards  started 


Polytheism,  8i 

into  being.  But  even  in  later  days  the  same  undis- 
guised element  plays  its  part  with  the  other  most 
ancient  gods  in  the  well-known  tragedy  of  ^schy- 
lus,  from  which  Shelley,  Byron,  Goethe  and  others 
have  drawn  such  favourite  inspiration.*  In  the 
same  way,  we  find  that,  though  the  golden-locked 
Apollo,  the  celestial  archer,  has  in  familiar  Greek 
theology  completely  displaced  the  original  sun  out 
of  which  he  grew,  nevertheless,  this  undisguised 
elemental  sun,  this  bright,  all-seeing,  all-command- 
ing Helios  —  -^Xto?  —  keeps  his  ground,  distinctly 
acknowledged  in  the  most  solemn  form  of  oath 
which  a  pious  Greek  could  take  into  his  mouth. 

Father  Jove,  from  Ida  swaying  God  most  glorious  and  great, 
And  thou,  Sun,  the  all-pervading  and  all -hearing  power,  and  ye 
Rivers  and  Earth,  f 

And  SO  with  the  rest.  To  an  eye  once  open  to 
the  fact  that  the  great  embodied  celestial  and  terres- 
trial forces,  which  form  partly  the  stage  and  partly 
the  atmosphere  of  our  human  life,  were  the  original 
gods  of  Greece,  it  requires  no  accidental  or  extend- 
ed recognition  by  the  Greek  poets  to  enable  it  to  see 
through  the  thin  veil  of  human  personality  under 

*  The  *'  Prometheus  Bound,"  in  the  introductory  scenes. 
f  Iliad,  iii.  277, 
4* 


82      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

which  their  elemental  significance  lay  concealed. 
Plato,  and  thinkers  much  below  his  range,  saw  the 
truth  and  spoke  it  out  plainly  ;  *  and,  in  fact,  a  mere 
modern  poet,  from  the  reverential  contemplation  of 
the  varying  forms  and  forces  of  Nature,  will  often 
reconstitute  the  persons  of  the  Greek  Pantheon  with- 
out any  formal  historical  tradition  ;  and  a  man  must 
be  dull  indeed  who  does  not  see  in  all  the  epithets 
of  Jupiter  and  Neptune,  the  most  obvious  imperso- 
nations of  the  thunderous  atmosphere  and  the  bil- 
lowy main.       A  dark-browed  king,   girdled  with 
dark-blue  clouds,  driving  across  the  copper-floor  of 
the  firmament,  in  a  chariot  of  thundering  steeds, 
with  a  flashing  bolt  in  his  hand,  and  an  eagle  in 
ministering  attendance,  this  is  exactly  the  figure 
that  a  poetical  imagination  would  body  forth,  when 
wishing  to  give  a  human  shape  to  the  awful  Divine 
Force  which  lies  in  that  perturbation  of  the  aerial 
elements  which   we   call   thunder.     And,  if  ships 
are  called  in  poetical  language  "  the  white-winged 
coursers  of  the  deep,"  how  is  it  possible  for  a  poeti- 
cal mind,  embodying   in  human  form  the  divine 


**' It  seems  plain  that  the  orighial  inhabitants  of  Greece  wor- 
shipped the  same  gods  as  are  now  acknowledged  by  the  majority  of 
the  Barbarians,  as  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  the  Earth,  the  Stars  and  the 
Sky."— Cratylus,  p.  397.  D. 


Polytheism,  Zt^ 

form  of  the  foaming  billows,  to  avoid  the  image  of 
a  long-bearded  charioteer,  crowned  with  chaplets 
of  seaweed,  and  bounding  from  wave  to  wave  in  a 
chariot  drawn  by  cerulean  steeds,  with  troops  of 
gods,  half-man,  half-fish,  blowing  shells  behind  ? 
All  this  lies  upon  the  surface,  and  calls  for  no 
erudite  research  or  curious  commentary.  But  let 
us  take  a  familiar  instance  a  little  less  obvious  to 
the  unprofessional  eye,  but  not  less  certain  to  a 
well-schooled  mythologer.  What  were  the  HAR- 
PIES ?  Not  a  few  of  our  readers  will  remember, 
from  their  school-days,  how  the  *'  pious  ^neas," 
in  the  course  of  his  long  sea-wanderings  and  stormy 
toils  to  found  the  mighty  Rome,  after  leaving  Crete 
and  rounding  Cape  Matapan,  landed  upon  certain 
rocky  islands  to  the  west  of  Greece  in  the  Archi- 
pelago called  the  Strophades,  and  there,  with  his 
wearied  crew,  sat  down  on  the  beach  to  take  some 
needful  refreshment ;  but  scarcely  had  they  sat 
down — 

Whenlo  !  the  Harpies  with  horrific  swoop 
Leap  from  the  hills,  and  fearful-clanging  wings 
And  with  their  obscene  claws  invade  the  feast 
And  spread  pollution  o'er  the  board,  with  blasts 
Pestiferous,  and  screams,  that  rend  the  ear.* 

*  ^neid  iii.  225. 


84      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

At  this  unseemly  interruption  from  their  prepared 
meal,  the  voyagers  rise  in  wrath,  seize  their  swords, 
and  commence  a  vigorous  offensive  war  against 
their  rude  assaulters.  But  in  vain.  Like  Macbeth's 
witches,  they  fly  off,  receiving  no  scaith  from  touch 
of  mortal  blade  ;  and,  perched  on  the  top  of  an  ad- 
jacent cliff,  the  leader  of  the  filthy  chorus,  called 
Celseno,  screeches  forth  a  hideous  prophecy  against 
the  much-enduring  founders  of  imperial  Rome.  In 
mythology,  as  indeed  in  the  early  history  of  all 
original  races,  names  are  always  significant ;  but 
the  name  of  this  personage,  Celaeno,  meaning  in 
Greek  BLACK,  will  not  help  us  far  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  myth.  When  we  turn  to  Homer  and 
Hesiod,  however,  the  names  of  these  vaporous 
Seizers  (so  Harpies  means,  from  dpTrd^co)  publish 
their  elemental  significance  in  terms  too  plain  for 
commentary.  Hesiod,  the  earliest  doctor  of  theolo- 
gy, and  acknowledged  theologer  of  the  Greeks,  in 
his  genealogy  of  the  gods  gives  the  following  ac- 
count of  the  pedigree  of  the  Harpies: — 


Thaumas  married  Electra,  the  daughter  of  deep-flowing  Ocean 
She  to  Iris  gave  birth,  the  swift,  and  she  to  the  Harpies, 
Beautiful  haired,  Aello  yclept,  and  Ocypete,  maidens 
Swiftly-winged  to  follow  the  path  of  the  bird,  or  the  vagrant 
Breeze  on  the  brae. 


Polytheism,  ^^ 

Now  these  two  names  signify,  the  one  whirl- 
windy  and  the  other  sivift-sw o oping ;  so  that  their 
names  alone  declare  their  nature,  as  plainly  as  the 
moral  characters  of  the  various  pilgrims  are  ex- 
pressed by  their  names  in  Bunyan's  popular  alle- 
gory ;  and  though  it  rather  appears  that  in  the 
case  of  Apollo  Homer  and  his  brother-minstrels 
had  no  notion  of  his  original  identity  with  the  ele- 
mental HeHos  or  the  Sun,  yet  in  the  case  of  the 
Harpies  the  poet  plainly  indicates  his  conscious- 
ness of  their  original  character,  when  he  says  of  the 
daughters  of  Pandarus  in  one  line  that  they  were 
snatched  away  by  the  Harpies,  and  in  another  line 
that  they  were  snatched  awa'y  by  the  whirlwinds.* 
We  have  here,  therefore,  a  plain  case  of  mytholo- 
gical personages,  playing  a  sort  of  equivocal  part 
between  the  element  of  which  they  were  the  im- 
personation, and  the  anthropomorphic  impersona- 
tion itself.  In  the  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda — thanks 
to  the  labours  of  Max  Miiller,  and  other  learned 
Sanscritists — this  sort  of  equivocal,  half  elemental, 
half  anthropomorphic  divine  powers  may  be  seen 
in  great  numbers,  and  studied  to  great  advantage. 

We  have  placed  this  case  of  the  Harpies  in  some 
detail  before  the  reader  till  he  may  be  able  to  judge 

*  Odyssey,  xx.  66  and  77. 


S6     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

for  himself,  from  what  root  of  scholarly  induction 
the  true  meaning  of  mythological  personage  may 
be  evolved.  How  the  direct  intuition  of  a  poetic 
mind  familiar  with  the  striking  aspects  and  the 
vital  significance  of  natural  scenery,  may,  without 
learned  research,  flash  forth  the  deepest  signifi- 
cance of  these  matters  in  the  most  graceful  way, 
the  following  passage  from  Wordsworth  will  most 
effectively  declare — 


'  Once  more  to  distant  ages  of  the  world 
Let  us  revert,  and  place  before  our  thoughts 
The  face  which  rural  solitude  might  wear 
To  the  unenlightened  swains  of  Pagan  Greece. 
In  that  fair  clime,  the  lonely  herdsman,  stretch'd 
On  the  soft  grass,  through  half  a  summer's  day. 
With  music  lulled  his  indolent  repose  ; 
And,  in  some  fit  of  weariness,  if  he. 
When  his  own  breath  was  silent,  chanced  to  hear 
A  distant  strain,  far  sweeter  than  the  sound 
Which  his  poor  skill  could  make,  his  fancy  fetched, 
Even  from  the  blazing  chariot  of  the  Sun, 
A  beardless  youth,  who  touched  a  golden  lute, 
And  filled  the  illumined  groves  with  ravishment. 
The  nightly  hunter,  lifting  a  bright  eye 
Up  towards  the  crescent-moon,  with  grateful  heart 
Called  on  the  lovely  wanderer  who  bestowed 
That  timely  light,  to  share  his  joyous  sport : 
And  hence,  a  beaming  goddess  with  her  nymphs, 
Across  the  lawn  and  through  the  darksome  grove. 
Not  unaccompanied  with  tuneful  notes 
By  echo  multiplied  from  rock  or  cave, 
Swept  in  the  storm  of  chase :  as  moon  and  stars 


Polytheism,  87 

Glance  rapidly  along  the  clouded  heaven, 

When  winds  are  blowing  strong.     The  traveller  slaked 

His  thirst  from  rill  or  gushing  fount,  and  thanked 

The  Naiad.      Sunbeams  upon  distant  hills 

Gliding  apace,  with  shadows  in  their  train, 

Might,  with  small  help  from  fancy,  be  transformed 

Into  fleet  Oreads  sporting  visibly. 

The  Zephyrs  fanning,  as  they  passed,  their  wings, 

Lacked  not,  for  love,  fair  objects  whom  they  wooed, 

With  gentle  whisper.      Withered  boughs  grotesque. 

Stripped  of  their  leaves  and  twigs  by  hoary  age, 

From  depth  of  shaggy  covert  peeping  forth 

In  the  low  vale,  or  on  steep  mountain  side  ; 

And,  sometimes,  intermixed  with  stirring  horns 

Of  the  live  deer,  or  goat's  depending  beard, 

These  were  the  lurking  Satyrs,  a  wild  brood 

Of  gamesome  Deities  :  or  Pan  himself. 

The  simple  shepherd's  awe-inspiring  God." 

The  genesis  of  mythological  theology  from  the 
action  of  a  reverential  imagination  on  the  forms 
and  forces  of  external  nature,  being  thus  explained 
in  a  few  prominent  instances,  we  have  next  to 
bear  in  mind  that  the  tendency  to  elevate  such 
imaginative  pictures  into  personal  gods,  and 
clothe  them  with  human  attributes,  having  once 
set  in,  could  not  be  expected  in  the  general  case 
to  confine  itself  to  the  few  striking  instances  from 
which  it  started.  It  was  possible,  indeed,  to  have 
made  the  start  from  the  moral  physical  dualism  of 
Heaven  and  Earth,  as  in  Hesiod  ;  or  from  the 
moral  dualism  of  the  Good  and   Evil  principle,  as 


88      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

in  the  theology  of  the  ancient  Persians,  and  to 
stop  there  ;  but  the  moment  that  a  separate  God 
has  been  assigned  to  the  thunder,  and  another  to 
the  Sun,  the  creation  of  an  uncounted  multitude 
of  separate  divine  personalities  was  as  natural  and 
necessary  as  the  growth  of  a  broad-branching  tree 
from  a  small  seed.  Division  and  subdivision,  as 
so  beautifully  described  in  Goethe's  poem  of  the 
Metamorphosis  of  Plants,  is  the  law  of  growth  in 
Nature,  and  the  law  of  development  in  imaginative 
theology.  Now  observe  what  follows.  Not  only 
the  grand  and  overwhelming,  but  at  the  same 
time  comparatively  definite  and  well-marked 
forces  of  external  nature,  but  the  more  mysterious 
and  incalculable,  and  often  strongly  unmanageable 
emotions  and  passions  of  the  inward  man,  come  in 
for  their  full  share  of  individualized  deification; 
and  these  passions  and  emotions,  being  recognised 
only  as  divine  Forces,  will  naturally  receive  theif 
allotment  of  worship  without  any  attempted  dis- 
tinction between  the  moral  good  and  evil  from 
which  they  spring,  or  the  good  and  evil  conse- 
quences to  which  they  tend.  Altars  will  be 
erected  to  FEAR*  and  to  F'EVER,   as  well  as  to 

*  *•  Tullus  in  re  trepidd  aras   Pallori  et  Favori  vovit.^"-^ 
Livy  i.  27. 


Polytheism,  89 

Justice  and  to  Mercy.  And  not  only  so,  but  if 
we  take,  for  instance,  the  worship  of  impersonated 
passions,  in  themselves  natural,  healthy,  and 
good,  such  as  the  worship  of  vital  enjoyment, 
under  the  form  of  DiONYSUS,  the  planter  of  the 
vine,  and  of  sexual  sympathy,  under  the  form  of 
Aphrodite,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  fervent  devotion 
to  such  divine  forces  might  easily  degenerate  into 
hot-beds  of  the  most  vulgar  sensualism.  Gener- 
ally, indeed,  we  may  see  in  Polytheism,  as  we 
have  sketched  its  origin,  a  radical  vice  in  the  want 
of  a  definite  and  well-marked  line  between  moral 
right  and  wrong  in  the  objects  of  popular  worship, 
so  that  even  at  its  best,  that  is  when,  as  in  Greece, 
it  was  inspired  and  moulded  by  a  pervading  spirit 
of  beauty,  it  makes  its  appeal  to  the  sesthetical 
rather  than  to  the  moral  faculties  of  our  compound 
nature :  being,  also,  as  we  have  seen  in  its  origin, 
without  any  regulating  power,  it  is  free  on  all 
sides  to  run  into  rampant  excess  ;  in  which  case 
the  application  of  the  proverb  will  not  be  far  to 
seek,  corruptio  optimi  pessima — the  corruption  of 
the  best  is  the  worst.  When  good  things  are 
bad,  they  are  very  bad.  Let  us  see,  then,  by  an 
example,  how  these  things  acted  in  practice 
among  our  model-polytheists,  the  ancient  Greeks. 


90     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

In  the  minute  topographical  description  of  Athens 
given  by  the  antiquarian  traveller  of  the  second 
century — Pausanias,  the  Grose  of  Greece — we  find 
the  following  passage: — ''In  the  market-place 
(ayopd)  of  Athens,  among  other  remarkable  things 
not  generally  noticed,  is  an  altar  of  Mercy,  a 
goddess,  to  whom,  on  account  of  her  manifest 
utility  in  all  the  changes  of  human  life,  the 
Athenians,  but  the  Athenians  alone,  pay  reasona- 
ble worship.  For  this  people,  of  all  the  Greeks, 
are  not  only  the  most  humane  and  civilized  in  all 
social  matters,  but  they  are  specially  notable  for 
their  piety  ;  *  and  besides  this  to  MERCY,  they 
have  erected  altars  to  Reverence,  and  to 
Rumour,  and  to  Impulse.  And  we  see  from 
this  plainly  how  those  states  which  are  most  dis- 
tinguished for  piety,  are  at  the  same  time  most 
favoured  by  the  gods  in  the  matter  of  prosperity 
and  good  fortune."  And  to  show  how  this  wor- 
ship of  Mercy  and  Reverence  acted  in  practice 
we  have  only  to  appeal  to  a  well-known  passage  in 
the  Oedipus  Coloneus  of  Sophocles,  in  which  the 


*  The  Bible  readex'  will  recall  the  introductory  words  of  St, 
Paul's  famous  Address  (Acts  xvii.),  though  these  commentators  are 
certainly  wrong  who  suppose  that  the  word  Seto-tSai/xo-'fo-Tepov  in  this 
passage  is  used  in  a  complimentary  sense  by  the  apostolic  writer. 


Polytheism.  g  i 

penitent  son  of  the  injured  old  monarch,  using  the 
strongest  appeal  to  move  the  heart  of  his  wrathful 
parent,  says : — 

*'  For  Mercy  sits  with  Jove  upon  the  throne 
In  every  doom  :  so  may  she  not  from  thee 
Sit  far,  my  father  !  " 

But  an  example  from  historical  fact  will  perhaps 
be  better.  The  elegant  Greek  humourist,  Lucian, 
in  that  charming  morsel  of  biography  entitled 
**  Demonax,"  relates  that  this  philosopher,  who 
had  a  remarkable  power  over  the  Athenians,  on 
one  occasion,  when  the  citizens,  from  a  rivalry 
with  the  Corinthians,  were  proposing  to  get  up  an 
exhibition  of  gladiators  after  the  manner  of  their 
then  masters,  the  Romans,  stood  up  publicly  and 
said — ''  Do  not,  men  of  Athens,  bring  forward  a 
bill  for  any  such  purpose,  till  you  have  rooted 
away  the  altar  of  Mercy  so  prominent  in  your 
market-place."  In  such  cases  it  is  plain  that, 
however  founded  in  an  intellectual  error  and  in 
one  sense  atheistical,  as  worshipping  the  creature 
rather  than  the  Creator,  Polytheism  was  calculated 
to  exercise,  and  actually  did  exercise,  a  moral 
power  of  singular  effectiveness.  In  fact,  as  we  see 
every  day,  a  mere  orthodoxy  of  the  head  in  the 


92      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

Christian  world,  without  any  such  practical  issues 
as  this  intellectual  rightness  is  calculated  to  pro- 
duce, so,  on  the  other  hand,  gross  intellectual  error 
may  exist  along  with  remarkable  moral  rightness. 
The  question,  therefore,  whether  in  any  particular 
religion  Polytheism  may  not  be  more  dishonouring 
to  God  than  Atheism,  depends  partly  on  the  na- 
ture of  the  deities  worshipped,  partly  on  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  people  worshipping  for  making  the 
best  use  of  slippery  and  equivocal  materials ; 
partly,  also,  on  the  counterbalancing  forces  which 
any  Polytheistic  form  may  contain  within  itself, 
neutralising  the  consistent  action  of  its  own  worst 
elements.  With  these  tests  in  our  hand,  we  can 
have  little  difficulty  in  perceiving  that,  though 
Greek  popular  theology  contained  certain  ele- 
ments whose  ignoble  issues  completely  justified  the 
condemnation  passed  upon  it  by  St.  Paul  in  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Romans,  it  was  in  the  main,  at 
least  in  its  palmy  days,  morally  beneficent  in  its 
tendency,  and  as  such,  we  may  say  less  dishonour- 
ing to  God,  and  less  monstrous  in  man,  than  even 
the  most  moral  forms  of  cold,  self-contained,  un- 
sympathetic, and  essentially  unhuman  Atheism. 
It  was  impossible,  indeed,  that  a  people  so  nobly 
endowed   as   the   Greeks,  and  whose   genius  had 


Polytheism,  93 

elevated  the  rude  songs  of  an  annual  harvest-home 
into  such  a  lofty  platform  of  moral  teaching  as  we 
find  in  the  tragedies  of  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Euripides,*  should  have  failed  to  let  the  grosser 
elements  of  their  physical  theology  drop,  and  to 
bring  into  the  foreground  what  higher  elements  in 
that  group  of  motley  forces  were  calculated  to  stir 
the  noblest  chords  in  the  human  heart,  and  elevate 
their  worshippers  to  some  likeness  of  the  more 
perfect  beings  whom  they  believed.  And,  accord- 
ingly, we  find  that  the  favourite  patron-goddess  of 
the  Athenians,  whose  far-glittering  spear  the  sea- 
tossed  sailor  greeted  as  he  rounded  the  Sunian 
promontory,  was  in  point  of  moral  character  as 
elevating  an  object  of  worship  as  any  purest  saint 
in  the  Christian  calendar.  No  doubt,  this  same 
Pallas,  in  the  **  Iliad,"  t  teaches  Pandarus  to  break 
a  truce  sealed  by  the  most  solemn  oaths.  But 
this  glaring  violation  of  one  of  the  most  weighty 
points  of  the  moral  law,  in  the  person  of  the  flash- 
ing-eyed daughter  of  the  supreme  ruler  of  Olym- 
pus,   is    one   of   those   inconsistencies   which   are 

*  **  The  preaching  power,  as  we  may  call  it,  of  the  Greek  stage 
as  a  pulpit,  will  be  best  realised  by  reading  the  Furies  of  ^schylus, 
and  the  opening  chorus  of  the  Agamemnon  by  the  same  lofty 
genius." 

\  Book  iv. 


94      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

readily  condoned  to  the  patriotic  partiality  of  the 
poem,  and  the  unsuspecting  simplicity  of  the  poet. 
We  must  bear  in  mind,  also,  that  no  people, 
though  it  carries  along  with  it  the  forms  of  ex- 
pression belonging  to  the  crude  theology  of  an 
early  age,  is  practically  influenced,  in  its  stages  of 
higher  social  growth,  by  all  that  such  crude  forms 
of  expression  would  consistently  seem  to  imply. 
On  the  contrary,  a  certain  inconsistency  is  the  sal- 
vation of  all  popular  creeds  ;  and  Plato  must  per- 
haps be  looked  on  as  somewhat  pedantic,  or,  at 
least,  as  over-severe,  when  in  the  second  book  of 
his  ideal  polity  he  inveighs  so  seriously  against  the 
theological  teaching  of  the  great  national  minstrel. 
Homer,  no  doubt — the  poet,  as  they  called  him — 
had  an  immense  moral  influence  over  every  Greek 
mind  ;  but  his  poems  were  secular,  not  sacred  ; 
and  no  person  was  obliged  to  make  a  formal  sub- 
scription to  all  his  theological  teachings,  as  if  they 
were  divine  oracles.  On  the  contrary,  the  wise 
Greeks  reserved  to  themselves  the  complete  right 
of  excluding  from  their  articles  of  faith  any  fact  or 
fable  asserted  of  the  gods  which  they  considered 
as  unworthy  of  the  Divine  Nature.  In  Aristo- 
phanes it  is  quite  true  that  a  disobedient  son  is  in- 
troduced who  justifies  his  insolence  to  his   father 


Polytheism,  9^ 

by  the  treatment   which   Father  Kronos  receives 
from  young  Jove,  in  the  mythological   allegories. 
But  the   Greeks  had  sense  enough  to  know  that 
things  said  or  done  about  the   gods  in  the  comic 
department  of  their  religious  exhibitions — for  the 
drama  was  part  of  the  national  religion — were  said 
or  done  only  to  excite  a  laugh,  and  could  be  said 
and  done,  as  they  were   said  and   done,  only  be- 
cause  everybody   knew  that   no   reasonable   man 
would  think  of  transferring  such  jokes  to  the  sober 
guidance  of  life,  when  holiday  fun  was  over.     Had 
such  jokes  been  perpetrated  on  the  serious  stage 
of  tragedy,  nay,  had  even  any  impropriety  been 
committed  in  the   dignified  dress  and  costume  of 
the  gods,  we  have  the  best  authority  for  saying 
that  the  religious  feelings  of  the  public  would  have 
been  grossly  outraged,  and  the  author  would  have 
been  censured  by  the  authorities.*     But  the  great 
salt  of  the   Greek  mythology,  and  which  kept  it, 
even  in  its  worst  days,  from  sinking  into  a  state  of 
putridity  and  pollution  more  degrading  than  many 
forms  of  atheism,  which  it  was  perfectly  capable  of 
when  this  antidote  ceased  to  act,  was  the  central 
truth  of  the  supremacy  of  Jove  as  the  moral  ruler 
of  the  universe — a  supremacy,  in  fact,  which  con- 
*  See  Lucian,  Piscator,  ch.  t^t^. 


96     The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

stituted  a  sort  of  MONOTHEISM  working  powerfully 
behind  scenes,  and  saving  Polytheism  from  that 
sensualistic  anarchy  into  which,  without  such  steer- 
age, it  would  inevitably  have  been  plunged.  On 
this  characteristic  of  Greek  Polytheism,  too  often 
lost  sight  of,  or  not  fairly  weighed,  a  word  or 
two  will  help  us  to  that  correct  estimate  of  the 
moral  action  of  Polytheism,  as  contrasted  with 
Atheism,  which  it  is  our  object  in  this  place  to 
make. 

Any  person  turning  to  the  *' Iliad"  at  that 
culminating  point  of  Achillean  prowess  called 
*'  The  Battle  of  the  Gods,"  will  find  himself  in  the 
middle  of  a  scene  of  celestial  antagonism  and  em- 
broilment, such  as  seems  to  render  the  belief  in 
any  consistent  moral  government  from  the  throne 
of  the  Hellenic  Olympus  impossible.  Nothing  in- 
deed could  appear  more  degrading  to  the  Divine 
Nature,  or  further  removed  from  the  severe  stabil- 
ity of  celestial  rule  as  contrasted  with  the  un- 
certainty and  mutability  of  earthly  dynasties,  than 
such  a  struggle  and  collision,  contrariety  and  con- 
fusion of  Heavenly  potencies  as  this  scene  presents. 
When  the  water-god  rages  against  the  fire-god, 
and  the  brother  and  spouse  of  the  Supreme  Re- 
gent enter  the  field  openly  to   dispute   the   com- 


Polytheis7n.  97 

mands,  and  to  brave  the  authority,  by  virtue  of 
which  alone  all  order  and  subordination  exist  In 
the  universe — how  Is  It  possible  that  the  faith  of 
any  religiously-disposed  person  should  find  conso- 
lation In  the  thought  of  such  an  anarchy  ?  And  Is 
not  the  attitude  of  self-contained  indifference  to  all 
super-mundane  powers  which  the  Epicurean  athe- 
ist maintains,  at  once  more  reasonable  and  more 
comfortable  ?  More  reasonable,  certainly,  and 
more  comfortable,  if  that  battle  of  the  gods  were 
all  of  the  Polytheistic  Providence  known  to  the 
Greeks,  or  Indeed  anything  but  an  incidental  scene, 
worked  up  into  a  somewhat  melodramatic  exag- 
geration by  the  feverish  fancy  of  the  poet.  But 
behind  all  this  apparent  confusion  the  almighty 
Jove  sits  as  serene  on  his  throne  as  the  sun  behind 
the  wild  race  of  ragged  clouds  on  a  stormy  day. 
It  is  always  a  difficult  matter  for  a  Christian  Mon- 
othelst  to  sympathise  with  the  religious  attitude 
of  pious  Polytheists.  Homer  knew  perfectly  well 
that  all  this  clatter  and  clash  of  Irate  celestial 
Powers  was  as  futile  In  the  long  run  to  disturb  the 
counsel  of  Jove,  as  the  barking  of  an  army  of  curs 
to  bring  down  the  bright  sister  of  Apollo  from  her 
sphere.  As  the  pilot  that  weathers  the  storms 
rides  gallantly  on  the  rim  of  a  roar  of  billows, 
5 


98      The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

every  one  of  which,  to  the  timid  cowering  land- 
lubber, seems  destined  to  engulph  the  tiny  craft 
in  its  gorge,  so  the  pious  Greek  Polytheist,  of 
whom  Homer  was  the  spokesman,  cherishes  an 
unshaken  faith  amid  all  the  turmoil  of  hostile 
forces,  whether  terrestrial  or  celestial,  that  an 
Almighty  one  sits  above,  whose  throne  may  not 
be  shaken.  Neptune  may  rage,  and  Juno  pout ; 
even  Minerva  may  con-descend  to  an  incidental 
patronage  of  perjury ;  but  Jove  sits  apart,  on 
*'  the  highest  peak  of  the  many- ridged  Olympus  ;  " 
and  where  he  sits.  Justice  and  Law  and  the  Fates 
sit  with  him,  as  firm  as  the  brazen  floor  of  the 
firmament  which  they  tread.  Those  critics  who 
doubt  the  unity  of  the  "  Ihad,"  and  tear  it  in 
pieces,  as  an  ill-made  Mosaic,  will  certainly  not 
doubt  the  unity  of  this  idea,  which  controls  and 
moulds  the  whole  process  of  the  action. 

^to9  0  eVeXetero  ^ovXrj^  and  the  '*  Counsel  of  Jove 
was  fulfilled."  *  In  order  to  understand  the  strong 
back-bone  of  Monotheism  which  kept  the  hostile 
elements  of  the  Hellenic  Polytheism  from  being 
dissipated  into  smoke,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 

*  In  the  invocation  at  the  beginning  of  what,  notwithstanding  all 
the  nxicrologic  analysis  of  the  ultra- Wolfians,  we  shall  still  wisely 
believe  to  be  a  great  poem,  the  product  of  a  great  poetical  genius. 


Polytheism,  99 

the  original  omnipotence  of  Jove,  which  belonged 
to  his  character  as  the  wielder  of  the  thunderbolt, 
was  naturally  transferred  to  him  as  the  head  of  a 
social  order  of  gods  and  men  ;  and  that  in  this 
capacity  not  only  was  his  authority  absolute — like 
that  of  the  patriarchal  chief  in  early  society — but 
his  wisdom  as  supreme  ruler  was^ undisputed,  and 
his  kindly  disposition  as  father  of  the  divine  and 
human  family  as  unquestioned  as  his  justice.  In 
him,  in  fact,  centre  all  those  physical  and  moral 
forces,  which  of  right  belong  to  the  strong  and 
beneficent  upholder  of  the  physical  and  moral 
order  of  things  in  the  universe.  And  so  endowed, 
we  rejoice  to  see  him  put  prominently  forward  on 
all  occasions  as  the  friend  of  the  weak  and  op- 
pressed, the  protector  of  suppliants,  the  advocate 
of  strangers  ;  and  specially,  as  truth  in  all  the  rela- 
tions of  public  and  private  life  is  the  cement  of 
society,  he  launches  his  bolt  with  a  sharp  mission 
of  terror  against  the  head  of  the  perjured  person 
and  the  traitor.  He  presides  in  the  forum,  and 
controls  the  debates  of  the  senate,  more  appropri- 
ately, but  not  less  potently,  than  the  collisions  of 
the  battle-field.  In  a  word,  he  is  Divine  Provi- 
dence fully  equipped,  and  may  stand  for  Allah,  or 
**  the   Great    Spirit,"  or  any  other  name  by  which 


loo   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

the  one  true  God  is  known  among  monotheistic 
races,  without  offence,  were  it  not  for  the  motley 
groups  of  grotesque  figures  from  old  traditions 
hanging  to  his  skirts,  which  obscure  his  glory,  de- 
grade his  character,  and  caricature  his  attributes. 

There  is  one  other  feature  of  Polytheism  which, 
however  ambitioj^is  of  brevity,  we  may  not  alto- 
gether omit.  It  opens  the  chapter  which  plays 
such  a  prominent  part  in  the  theology  of  the  East, 
the  worship  of  deified  mortals.  Of  this,  as  it  is  a 
distinctive  element  of  Buddhism,  we  shall  treat 
under  a  separate  head  ;  on  its  more  moderate 
manifestation  in  ancient  Greece,  a  i^\N  words  will 
suffice  here.  Now,  in  the  first  place,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  whatever  wonderful  feats  of  super- 
human strength  Diomede,  or  Achilles,  or  any 
other  highly-favoured  hero  may  perform  in  ancient 
story,  whether  in  virtue  of  his  divine  birth  or  of 
special  divine  aid  imparted  for  the  nonce,  on  no 
occasion  did  the  sober-minded  piety  of  the  Greeks 
ever  rise  into  that  region  of  devout  intoxication  or 
exaggeration  inspired  by  which  the  Aryan  religion- 
ists on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  contrived  with 
such  gorgeous  breadth  of  extravagance  to  break 
down  all  definite  boundaries  betwixt  the  human 
and  the  divine  ;  only  in  the  case  of  Dionysus  does 


Polytheism,  loi 

some  strange  confusion  seem  to  exist  between  a 
sort  of  Hellenic  Noah,  the  first  brewer  of  sun- 
breust  from  the  vine,  and  the  great  procreant  force 
of  nature,  working  always  in  the  humid  element, 
from  which  all  vegetative  and  animal  Hfe  proceeds. 
The  Theban  Hercules,  though  sometimes,  in  works 
of  art,  seen  in  session  with  the  gods,  is  no  more 
a  god  than  Romulus  to  the  Romans,  or  St.  Igna- 
tius to  the  CathoHc  Church ;  and  if  in  the  wealth 
of  strange  legends  that  have  clustered  round  the 
name  of  the  son  of  Alcmene,  many  scholars  of 
weight  have  seen  an  allegorical  impersonation  of 
the  Sun,  and  the  process  of  his  celestial  circuit,  this 
may  well  be  as  an  accretion  to  the  original  Thebati 
Hercules,  imported  through  early  Phoenician  agency 
from  Tyre  or  elsewhere,  but  does  not  in  the  least 
alter  the  fact,  that  in  the  worship  which  they  paid 
to  that  hero,  the  Greeks  were  perfectly  conscious 
that  they  were  paying  honour  to  a  mere  man — a 
typical  man,  no  doubt,  and  a  man  looked  up  to  by 
the  whole  nation  as  the  ideal  of  physical  strength 
wisely  used  and  grandly  put  forth  ;  but  a  man  still 
— only  a  step  or  two  of  the  ladder  more  exalted 
than  Theseus  or  Achilles.  In  fact,  the  hero-wor- 
ship of  the  Greeks  was  always  separated  by  a 
distinct  and  palpable  line  of  demarcation  from  the 


I02    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

worship  of  the  gods.     As  soon   would  a  modern 
publisher  of  an  aristocratic  Red-book  confound  a 
knight  of  yesterday  with  a  baron  of  the  realm,  as 
a   religious    ancient    Greek  dream  of  elevating  a 
Diomede  or  an   Achilles   into   the    transcendental 
region    of  a    Buddha    or   man-god.       No    doubt 
there  were   floating   about   in   the   popular    mind 
some  strange  old   traditions  regarding  the  terres- 
trial sojourn,  the  birth  and  even  the  death  of  some 
of  the  mighty   Olympians.      But  these  traditions 
bore  the  character  of  vagrant  anomalies  and  local 
singularities,    well    calculated,    certainly,    to    arm 
the   assault   of  a   sceptical    unbeliever,  here    and 
there,  but  not  in  any  wise  influencing  the  belief 
of  the  mass   of  the   people.     The    most   remark- 
able of  these  old  traditions,  which  seem  to  point  to 
the  deification  of  mortal  man  as  the  true  germ  of 
the    Greek   Pantheon,  is   that  with   regard   to  the 
birth  and  death  of  Jove  in  the  island  of  Crete.   The 
sting   of  this   scandal,  which    the    Church   fathers 
were  ever  forward  to  protrude  against  the  Greek 
idolaters,  lay  not  in  the   mere  legend  of  the  king 
of  gods   and   men   having  had   a  beginning,   and 
having  first  shown   himself  to  gods  and   men  on  a 
particular   spot  of  earth  as  their  destined  regent. 
Mere  birth  under  a  human  form   did  not  present 


Polytheism.  103 

itself  to  the  imagination  of  any  pious  Greek  as  in 
any  wise  involving  participation  in  the  common 
wants  and  weaknesses  of  frail  mortality.  All  the 
gods  of  the  reigning  dynasty  had  been  born  in 
time.  Apollo  was  born  in  Delos,  Hermes  in  Ar- 
cadia, while  for  the  nativity  of  the  Queen  of 
Heaven  Argos  and  Samos  put  forth  rival  claims 
with  all  the  energy  that  combined  piety  and 
patriotism  could  inspire.  The  popular  theology 
of  Greece  was  not  metaphysical  enough  to  assume 
an  Aristotelian  attitude,  and  inquire  curiously 
whether  that  which  had  a  beginning  might  not 
naturally  or  at  least  possibly  come  to  an  end.  The 
possibility  of  the  dethronement  of  Jove  from  the 
seat  of  supreme  cosmic  government,  as  in  fact  his 
father  Kronos  had  been  dethroned  before,  might 
be  hinted  for  dramatic  purposes,  as  in  the  well- 
known  Prometheus  of  ^schylus,  but  was  no  more 
dreamt  of  in  fact  than  we  should  think  of  speculat- 
ing on  the  disappearance  of  the  sun  from  the  fir- 
mament to-morrow,  which  has  been  gladdening  us 
to-day.  But  to  say  seriously  that  the  father  of 
gods  and  men,  the  Supreme  Immortal  from  whose 
throne  depends  the  golden  chain  that  binds  all 
creation  with  a  harmonious  unity,- to  say  that  this 
key-stone  of  all  physical  reality  and  all  metaphysi- 


I04   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

cal  consistency  was  historically  a  mere  man,  and  a 
man  that  had  not  only  been  born,  but  who  died 
and  was  buried  ;  this  in  the  ear  of  any  pious  Greek 
was  flat  blasphemy,  and  could  only  have  been 
suggested  by  men  hke  Epicurus  and  Diagoras  of 
Melos,  or  Lucian  of  Samosata,  who  wished  to 
bring  the  Hellenic  faith  into  contempt.  And 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  man  who  first  in 
ancient  times  boldly  and  consistently  maintained 
the  doctrine  that  the  gods  of  Greece  were  all  mere 
dead  men  deified,  meant  by  so  doing  to  give  the 
popular  religion  a  stab  in  a  mortal  part,  from 
which  it  could  not  recover.  This  man  was  a  Sicil- 
ian, by  name  Euhemerus,  a  philosopher  of  the 
Cyrenaic  school,  and  attached  in  some  capacity, 
we  know  not  exactly  what,  to  the  Court  of  Cassan- 
der  of  Macedon,  the  immediate  successor  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  in  that  quarter.  Of  him  history 
tells  that  he  made  a  voyage  to  the  Red  Sea,  and 
from  that  cruise  and  other  marine  wanderings 
returned  with  a  notable  budget  of  sacred  inscrip- 
tions, kpai  avaypacpal,  from  the  witness  of  which 
he  pretended  to  have  found  the  mortal  birth  and 
death  of  the  whole  existing  dynasty  of  supposed 
Olympian  gods.  This  book,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
made   a  considerable  noise   in   the  then  religious 


Polytheisin,  105 

world  ;    and    the   author   unquestionably,   had  he 
lived  in  other  times,  and  under  the  eye  of  most 
religious  Athens,  might  have  got  hemlock  for  his 
sleeping-draught  some  night,  as  Socrates  did  for  a 
much  smaller  offence,  or  rather  only  an  imagined 
offence  against  the  local  orthodoxy.     His  escape, 
so  far  as  history  notes,  from  all  punishment,  after 
such  a  daring  act  of  public  blasphemy,  is  to   be 
accounted  for,  partly  from  the  change  of  the  times, 
but  in  a  great   measure   also  from   the  fact  that 
books  in  those  days  were  confined  to  a  very  nar- 
row circle— a  circle  not  so  wide,  we  may  imagine, 
as  that  of  the  men  who  read  Latin  books  in  Shake- 
speare's time  in  this  country— and  so  a  little  offen- 
sive talk  and  street-logic  by  a  man  in  the  social 
position  of  Socrates   at  Athens  a  hundred  years 
earlier,  might   naturally  do  more  to  raise  the  cry 
of  atheism   against   its    author   than   a   big   book 
launched  into  the  literary  world  in  the  disrupted 
state  of  Greek  society  that  followed  the  Macedo- 
nian conquest  and  partition.     As  to  the  contents 
of  this  book,  and  how  far  they  legitimately  seemed 
to    prove  a  Buddhistic   sort   of  confusion    of  the 
human  and  the    divine,   no  opinion    can   now  be 
given  so  long  as  the  book  is  not  before  us.      Its 
popularity  within  a  certain  narrow  range  of  seep- 


io6    The  Nahcral  History  of  Atheism, 

tically-inclined  literary  men,  such  as  Ennius 
amongst  the  Romans,  who  translated  it  into  Latin, 
proves  nothing.  That  some  heroes  of  great  local 
significance,  as  the  great  Napoleon  in  France,  may, 
under  certain  circumstances,  by  the  exaggerated 
reverence  paid  to  them  in  popular  traditions,  have 
been  elevated  into  the  state  and  dignity  of  gods, 
is  not  to  be  doubted  ;  but  that  the  Olympian 
dynasty  of  Greece,  whose  elemental  significance  is 
so  transparent,  should  as  a  whole  have  had  only 
this  origin,  runs  in  the  face  of  all  probability,  and 
is  in  no  wise  to  be  believed  without  some  substan- 
tial proof,  very  different  from  that  which  a  few 
anomalous  inconsistencies  in  the  motley  swarm  of 
local  religious  legends  affords.  We  know  that  in 
later  times  mortal  kings  sometimes  took  to  them- 
selves the  title  of  the  god  whom  they  specially 
worshipped,  as  was  the  case  with  that  vile  com- 
pound of  frantic  fancies  and  disgusting  vices  who 
once  sate  on  the  throne  of  imperial  Rome,  called 
HeHogabalus.  And  if  we  suppose  that  a  mortal 
king  as  superior  to  common  men,  as  this  wretched 
caricature  of  kingship  was  below  it,  in  the  earliest 
ages  of  Greek  civilisati6n  reigning  wisely  and 
beneficently  in  Crete,  had  the  title  of  the  local  god 
given  to  him  in  his   lifetime,  and   after   death  in- 


Polytheism.  107 

scribed  upon  his  tomb,  we  shall  have  a  theory 
which  explains  all  the  facts  of  the  alleged  sepul- 
ture of  Jove  in  that  island,  without  resorting  to  a 
supposition  at  once  revolting  to  natural  piety,  con- 
tradicted by  the  speaking  symboHsm  of  the  general 
body  of  Hellenic  mythology,  and  contrary  to  all 
that  is  historically  known  of  the  development  of 
theological  ideas  in  the  Aryan  race. 

So  much  for  this  strange  chapter  of  the  deifica- 
tion of  dead  men  in  ancient  Greece.  But  flinging 
the  speculation  of  Euhemerus  aside,  as  destitute 
alike  of  nobility  and  of  probability,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  religious  homage  actually  paid 
by  the  Greeks  to  such  representative  men  as  Her- 
cules and  Theseus  (for  which  they  used  a  special 
word  iva'yl^eLv  as  opposed  to  6vetv),  exercised  a 
most  elevating  influence  on  the  national  character. 
It  was  not  among  the  heroes  or  demigods,  but 
among  a  certain  class  of  the  supreme  Olympians 
themselves,  that  the  germs  of  a  most  degrading 
moral  corruption  were  to  be  found.  The  priest- 
hood of  a  worship  that  could  be  represented  by 
such  a  debased  sensualist  as  Heliogabalus  might 
well  be  exchanged  for  any  sort  of  virtuous  atheism  ; 
but  the  national  honours  paid  by  cultivated  Greece 
to  such  names  as  Theseus  and  Hercules  were  one 


io8    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

step  in  the  ladder  of  healthy  reverence  that  con- 
sistently leads  up  to  God. 

One  other  remark,  and  we  close.  We  have 
talked  only  of  the  moral  influences  of  polytheism, 
as  these  are  in  fact  the  most  important.  A  super- 
stition which,  though  founded  on  erroneous  intel- 
lectual conceptions,  works  practically  in  the  main 
so  as  to  cherish  the  best  emotions  and  call  into 
action  the  noblest  energies  of  human  beings,  is 
always  better  than  the  cold  negations,  blank  vacui- 
ties, or  rabid  hostilities  of  atheism.  But  there  is 
one  danger  to  which  a  religion,  the  growth  of  mere 
emotion  and  imagination  is  exposed  from  which  its 
ultimate  ruin  after  however  long  a  period  of  pros- 
perity may  surely  be  predicted.  Man  is  a  think- 
ing animal  as  well  as  a  feeling  animal :  his  brain, 
if  not  able  to  supply  the  steam-power  which  moves 
the  social  machine,  has  nevertheless  rights  of  in- 
quiry and  survey  which  it  may  not  forego  ;  and 
the  breaches  in  the  coherent  structure  of  the  the- 
ology of  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  so  many  and  so 
exposed,  that  a  people  far  less  subtle  and  far  less 
proud  of  their  wisdom  than  the  Greeks,  in  the  nat- 
ural progress  of  the  popular  intellect,  could  not 
fail  to  use  them  as  irresistible  invitations  to  assaults 
from  the  side  of  Reason,  which  no  weapons  drawn 


Polytheism,  109 

from  a  purely  emotional  and  sesthetical  armoury- 
could  repel.  It  is  only  a  question  of  delay,  there- 
fore, not  of  doubtful  issue,  how  soon  the  decided 
monotheistic  or  pantheistic  polemics  vigorously 
started  by  individual  independent  thinkers,  such  as 
Xenophanes  of  Colophon,  so  early  as  600  B.C., 
would  ripen  into  a  general  revolt,  and  large  defec- 
tion of  the  popular  mind  from  the  most  cherished 
religious  traditions  of  their  race.  No  religion  can 
stand  when  it  comes  into  a  position  of  glaring  con- 
trariety to  the  intellectual  consciousness  of  the  age. 


CHAPTER  V. 


BUDDHISM. 


MTjSels  vfjias  Kara^pa^eviTO  OeKcov  iv  TaTr€ivo(ppo(Tvvr)  /col  dprjaKeicf, 
Twv  ayyeXcav,  &  /xtj  edopaKeu  ififiarivav,  et/cj?  (pvcriov/xeuos  virh  tov  j/ohs 
T7JS  crapKhs  avTOv'  arivd  iariv  \6yov  fiev  ^xovra  aocplas  iu  iOcXoGprj- 
aKeiq,  Ka\  TaTreLvo<j)po(Twrf  /cot  d^6t5/<f  (TwixaTOS,  ovk  iv  ti/xt)  tivI  irphs 
TrKricpiOv^v  t^s  aapKSs. 

•*  Let  no  man  beguile  you  of  your  reward,  in  a  voluntary  humility 
and  worshipping  of  angels,  intruding  into  those  things  which  he 
hath  not  seen,  vainly  puffed  up  by  his  fleshly  mind. 

"  Which  things  have  indeed  a  show  of  wisdom  in  will-worship, 
and  humility,  and  neglecting  of  the  body  ;  not  in  any  honour  to  the 
satisfying  of  the  flesh." 

St.  Paul.     Colossians  ii.  i8,  23. 


WHEN  I  began  to  consider  seriously  the 
strange  epiphany  of  British  atheism  or 
agnosticism,  as  it  paraded  itself  publicly  in  the 
persons  of  Bradlaugh,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  Tyndall,  and  others,  my  attention  was 
naturally  called  to  the  fact — which  our  native 
agnostics  seemed  to  have  a  special  delight  in  re- 


Buddhism.  1 1 1 

cognising — that  in  the  far  East  atheism  had  been 
pubHcly  professed  for  more  than  two  thousand 
years,  and  was  at  present  the  corner-stone  of  the 
faith  of  more  than  four  hundred  milHons  of  the 
human  race.  A  rehglon  based  upon  atheism  was 
certainly  an  astounding  fact — a  fact,  indeed,  un- 
intelHglble,  and  according  to  the  common  use  of 
language,  self- contradictory.  To  my  understand- 
ing, at  least,  it  seems  as  meaningless  to  talk  of 
religion  without  God,  as  to  talk  of  the  propositions 
in  Euclid  without  the  postulates  on  which  they 
depend.  But  this  was  not  all.  Contrary  to  all 
human  instincts,  except  perhaps  the  instincts  of 
that  Siamese  pair,  Mr.  Atkinson  and  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  the  Buddhists,  we  were  informed,  delight- 
ed in  the  idea  of  annihilation  ;  and  to  be  entirely 
blotted  out  from  the  world  of  conscious  existences 
was,  to  their  devout  imaginations,  the  ideal  of 
human  bHss.  Absurd  and  abnormal  as  these 
notions  might  seem  to  be,  it  was  in  vain  to  brush 
them  aside,  as  one  might  flap  away  an  army  of 
impertinent  flies,  or  stop  the  ear  to  the  maunder- 
ing babble  of  some  adjacent  bedlam.  Here  stood 
the  fact :  next  door  to  us  at  Calcutta  in  the  East, 
four  hundred  millions  of  reasonable  beings  profess- 
ing a  belief  in  a  doctrine  essentially  unreasonable, 


1 1 2    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

and   contradicting,    as    often   as   they   draw   their 
breath,  the  primary  instincts  of  all  living  creatures 
in  this  Western  hemisphere  of  the  globe.      It  was 
a  matter  manifestly  that  demanded  inquiry  ;  and 
there  was  at  the  same  time  the  best  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  broad  statement  of  these  monstrous 
doctrines,   as  it  was  circulated  among  the  sober 
Europeans,  would  require  to  be  modified  consider- 
ably, perhaps  altogether  inverted  before   it  could 
be  accepted  as  a  philosophical   account  of  the  real 
state  of  oriental  belief.     For  not  only  is  it  a  patent 
fact  that  the  professors  of  hostile  creeds  generally 
misunderstand  and  misrepresent  each  other ;  but 
the  whole  method  of  religious  and  philosophical 
thinking  in  the  East  is  so  opposed  to  the  currency 
of  the  logical  conceptions  in  the  West,  that  a  fair 
appreciation  of  such  a  phenomenon  as  Buddhism 
was  not  to  be  looked  for  in  the  first  instance  as 
possible  by  Europeans ;  least  of  all  by  the  English- 
man, who  disowns  all  philosophy,  and  by  the  Scot, 
whose  philosophy  in  that  deeper  region  where   it 
becomes   identical   with    theology,   is    remarkably 
rigid,    narrow,    and   unsympathetic.      I    therefore 
determined,  with  the  help  of  Williams's  Sanscrit 
Dictionary,  Childer's  Pali  Dictionary,  and  a  selec- 
tion of  the  best  original  works  on  the  subject,  of 


Biiddhis7n,  113 

which  the  name  is  now  legion,*  to  get  to  the  root 
of  the  matter,  as  far,  at  least,  as  that  might  be 
possible  to  a  person  not  versed  in  the  languages 
of  the  Buddhist  Scriptures  ;  and,  when  I  consider- 
ed how  truly  the  spirit  of  Christianity  has  been 
seized  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  persons  who 
never  knew  anything  but  modern  versions  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  I  saw  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  I  might  succeed  in  the  attempt.  For  though 
profound  philological  knowledge  is  necessary  to 
the  interpretation  of  difficult  passages,  and  the 
solution  of  a  few  knotty  points,  the  main  character 
of  a  religious  or  philosophical  system  will  shine 
out  from  a  fair  translation  as  clearly  as  from  the 
original  Scriptures.  Such  things,  indeed,  always 
are  discerned,  as  St.  Paul  teaches  (i  Cor.  ii. 
14 — 16),  more  by  spiritual  sympathy  than  by  in- 
tellectual analysis.  Have  the  spiritual  sympathy, 
and  plant  yourself — a  thing  not  to  be  done  with- 
out considerable  effort  sometimes — on  the  native 
point  of  view  ;  and  a  sensible  man  will  ofttimes 
come  closer  to  the  soul  of  any  religious  system 

*  See  "Buddha  and  his  Doctrines;  by  Otto  Kistner,"  Leipzig 
and  London,  1869,  and  since  that  date  the  articles  Buddhism  and 
Brahminism,  in  the  new  edition  of  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannicay 
by  scholars  of  note  ;  also  the  admirable  little  book  on  Buddhism^ 
by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  London,  1877. 


114    The  Natter al  History  of  Atheism, 

than  if  he  had  devoured  all  the  commentaries  of 
all  the  libraries.  Nine-tenths,  indeed,  of  all  com- 
mentaries are  mere  impertinent  babble  of  persons 
who  had  no  vocation  to  speak ;  which,  if  it  were 
stowed  away  altogether  into  an  oblivious  lumber- 
room,  would  clear  the  atmosphere  wonderfully, 
and  save  not  a  little  trouble. 

Chronology  and  accurate  history  are  well  known 
to  be  the  weak  points  of  the  Hindoo  literature  :  so 
we  must  not  expect  to  start  with  any  very  well- 
marked  and  formally  authenticated  memoirs  of  the 
great  Reformer  of  the  Brahmanic  religion.  Never- 
theless, the  main  facts  of  the  life  of  Buddha  stand 
out  distinctly  enough,  magnified  no  doubt  through 
the  mist  of  distant  tradition,  and  worked  all  over 
with  the  gorgeous  decorations  of  an  unchastened 
and  unscrupulous  fancy,  but  clearly  there — except 
perhaps  to  the  eyes  of  some  of  those  Teutonic  idea- 
mongers,  whose  brains  so  swarm  with  ingenious 
fictions  that  they  have  no  room  left  for  facts.  We 
live,  happily,  in  a  generation,  when  even  King 
Arthur,  once  consigned  to  the  limbo  of  all  the 
myths,  is  being  restored  to  his  personality ;  and 
so  we  may  with  all  certainty  take  our  stand  on  the 
fact  that  the  celebrated  Gotama  Muni,  who  is  now 
worshipped  as  the  supreme  object  of  veneration  by 


Buddhism.  115 

all  the  Buddhists  of  the  East,  was  born  a  prince  of 
the  Sakya  race  in  the  Gangetic  of  Hindostan, 
about  100  miles  N.E.  of  Benares,  some  six  hun- 
dred years  before  our  era.  The  exact  date,  like 
the  age  of  Homer,  is  disputed,  and  likely  to  re- 
main so  ;  but,  if  we  follow  the  Ceylonese  authori- 
ties, who  profess  Buddhism  in  its  oldest  and  pu- 
rest form,  we  shall  place  this  Luther  of  the  Eastern 
Church  somewhere  in  the  sixth  century  before 
Christ — cotemporary  with  Solon,  the  Athenian 
lawgiver ;  Thales,  the  Milesian  philosopher  ;  and 
the  Etruscan  dynasty  of  the  Tarquins  in  Rome. 
His  original  name  was  Siddartha ;  and  his  father, 
Suddhodana,  as  was  to  be  expected,  took  all  possi- 
ble care  that  his  son  should  be  trained  in  all  those 
arts  and  accomplishments  which  belong  to  a  great 
Eastern  prince  and  the  ruler  of  a  mighty  empire. 
But  fathers  are  often  disappointed  when  they  plan 
the  destinies  of  their  offspring,  especially  when 
those  sons  have  a  large  stock  of  that  rare  stuff  in 
the  human  family,  whose  nature  it  is  to  shape  cir- 
cumstances rather  than  to  be  shaped  by  them.  In 
this  case  the  destiny  of  the  royal  Celtic  saint,  St. 
Columba,  was  prefigured  ;  the  young  Siddartha, 
though  surrounded  with  every  splendour  that 
could  attract,  and  every  pleasure  that  could  allure, 


ii6    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

would  not  be  contained  within  the  charmed  circle 
of  a  Court  life.  To  him  a  Court  was  only  a  splen- 
did confinement,  and  what  the  Court  called  pleas- 
ure only  a  more  elegant  sort  of  animalism.  He 
felt  himself  to  be  more  than  an  animal ;  he  was  a 
thinker ;  besides  he  had  a  hunger  of  human  love 
in  his  bosom,  swelling  with  heavings,  to  which 
neither  the  blaze  of  gold  in  an  Indian  palace,  nor 
the  allurements  of  sensuous  delight  in  a  harem  of 
the  choicest  Oriental  beauties,  could  minister  any 
nourishment.  So  he  broke  the  golden  bars  of  that 
prison  one  day,  and  told  his  coachman,  Tchandaka, 
to  harness  his  chariot  and  to  drive  out  beyond  the 
precincts  of  the  palace,  to  see  what  might  be  found 
there.  Now,  the  king  could  not  prevent  this  :  but 
being  haunted  by  a  fear  from  some  family  predic- 
tion that  his  son  might  one  day  manifest  a  distaste 
for  public  life,  and  desert  the  throne  for  a  her- 
mitage, he  caused  the  whole  district  within  the 
range  of  the  prince's  possible  drive  to  be  cleared 
of  every  unpleasant  or  unsightly  object  that  might 
possibly  divert  the  thoughts  of  his  son  from  the 
splendours  and  luxuries  of  a  Court  life.  But  all 
his  precautions  were  in  vain.  On  three  several 
occasions,  when  the  prince  rode  out,  he  saw  specta- 
cles of  human  misery,  such  as  could  not  be  seen 


Buddhism,  117 

by  a  man  naturally  of  the  most  unselfish  character 
without  opening  the  door  to  a  current  of  the  most 
serious  reflections.  He  saw — so  the  Chinese  book 
has  it — ''  in  one  of  the  streets  the  body  of  an  old, 
decrepit  man ;  his  skin  shrivelled  up,  his  head 
bald,  his  teeth  gone,  his  body  bent  down.  He 
carried  a  staff  in  his  hand  to  support  his  tottering 
limbs ;  whilst,  as  he  proceeded,  he  gasped  with 
pain,  and  the  breath  from  his  mouth  sounded,  as 
it  came,  like  the  raspings  of  a  saw."  *  And  then, 
on  inquiry,  he  was  informed  by  the  coachman  that 
this  was  by  no  means  a  singular  spectacle,  but  the 
common  lot  of  all,  prince  as  well  as  peasant,  who 
might  live  unharmed  till  such  time  as  their  life 
found  its  natural  termination.  Whereupon  the 
prince  replied  :  *'  If  this  be  so,  I  cannot  think  of 
proceeding  farther  whither  we  were  going  to  sport 
and  laugh.  Turn  your  horses  homeward  :  let  us 
return  to  the  palace  ;  it  were  better  for  me  to  pass 
my  time  in  thinking  how  to  contrive  to  escape,  or 
at  least  to  palliate  this  end  of  AGE."     On  his  sec- 

*  The  romantic  legend  of  Sakya  Buddha,  from  the  Chinese  by 
Samuel  Beal.  London :  Triibman,  1875,  p.  109.  This  book, 
though  of  Chinese  manufacture,  is  founded  on  Sanscrit  traditions, 
and  may  be  relied  on  as  giving  a  true  idea  of  what  Buddhists  gener- 
ally believe,  or  are  taught  to  believe,  of  the  great  founder  of  their 
religion. 


Ii8    The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism. 

ond  excursion,  he  encountered  on  the  roadside — 
whether  naturally  or  by  the  glamoury  of  a  deva- 
piitra,  angel,  or  genius,  does  not  matter — ''  a  sick 
and  pain-worn  man,  with  cramped  limbs  and 
swollen  belly,  giving  evidence  of  agonising  suffer- 
ing, pale  and  miserable,  scarcely  able  to  draw  his 
breath,  and  every  now  and  then  lying  down  in  the 
dirt  through  exhaustion."  And  this  spectacle  pro- 
duced a  similar  effect.  Lastly,  on  a  third  excur- 
sion, a  deva-putra  caused  to  appear  directly  in  his 
path  *'  a  corpse  on  a  bier.  Then  he  saw  the  people 
lift  up  the  bier  and  carry  it  along,  some  spreading 
grass  upon  it ;  whilst  on  the  right  and  left  were 
weeping  women  tearing  their  hair  and  beating  their 
breasts  with  grief;  others  striking  their  heads 
across  either  arm  ;  others  throwing  dust  on  their 
heads  ;  others  wailing  and  lamenting,  and  weeping 
tear-drops  fast  as  rain,  with  such  sad  and  bitter 
cries  as  could  seldom  be  heard.  Was  this  also 
part  of  the  common  lot  ?  Yes,  replied  the  coach- 
man :  peer  and  peasant,  sacred  bodies  and  profane, 
must  equally  die.  Then  finally  said  the  prince  : 
If  this  be  really  so,  and  this  body  of  mine  must  die, 
and  become  even  as  this  corpse,  what  have  I  to  do 
with  pleasure,  or  why  should  I  go  to  the  garden 
to  find   enjoyment  ?      Turn   again,    O   coachman  ! 


Buddhism.  119 

turn  again  your  chariot !  and  take  me  back  to  the 
palace,  that  I  may  meditate  on  what  you  have 
said.  Then  the  prince  entered  the  palace  again, 
and  sat  silently  down  and  pondered  on  death  and 
the  inipermane7tey  of  all  things.''  * 

I  have  quoted  this  vision  of  the  three  woes  almost 
at  full  length,  because  it  shows  better  than  the  most 
cunning  style  of  portraiture  could  what  manner  of 
man  we  have  to  do  with.  We  have  to  do  with  a 
man  of  the  most  exquisite  moral  sensibility — a 
man  who  could  no  more  bear  to  see  sorrow  of  any 
kind,  without  devoting  himself  to  its  extirpa- 
tion or  alleviation,  than  a  hungry  man  can  forbear 
to  crave  for  food.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of 
people  in  the  West  End  of  London  see  such  spec- 
tacles readily,  but  are  not  so  moved  ;  a  passing 
^^ poor  wretch  !  "  or  a  superfluous  sixpence  flung 
on  the  ground,  to  be  picked  up  by  a  half-naked 
suppliant,  settles  the  score  of  their  pity.  They 
make  the  round  of  the  Row  in  the  sunshine  ;  eat 
their  dinner  with  sunset  from  gorgeous  plates 
enamelled  with  sky-blue,  and  edged  with  gold  ; 
and  after  due  potations  of  champagne,  port,  or 
burgundy,  as  the  case  may  be,  sally  out,  through 
the  dark,  to  the  splendour  of  a  dancing-saloon, 

*  Beal  as  above,  p.  119. 


I20   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

where  they  remain,  tripping  it  deftly  with  the 
young  and  Hght-hearted  through  the  small  hours 
of  the  morning,  till  their  body,  with  such  pro- 
longed exercitation,  is  exhausted,  but  with  a  per- 
fectly easy  conscience.  Now,  I  do  not  say  that 
these  gay  people  are  doing  anything  wrong — quite 
the  contrary ;  I  like  to  see  gay  people  ;  it  is 
natural  and  healthy  to  be  gay  ;  but  what  falls 
here  to  be  remarked  is  simply  this,  that  these 
fashionable  West-Enders,  living  from  week  to 
week  and  from  night  to  night,  with  perfect  con- 
tent, in  what  is  called  the  gay  world,  are  not  per- 
sons of  Sakya  Muni's  extreme  moral  sensibility. 
The  illustrious  Prince  of  the  Sakyan  race  could  not 
see  these  things  and  dance.  He  could  not  laugh, 
while  his  brother  was  weeping.  The  sorrow  of  his 
fellow-men,  as  it  fell  down  in  big  briny  drops, 
mingled  with  his  cup  of  pleasure,  and  turned  it 
into  gall.  From  that  moment  he  became  a  sad 
and  a  solitary  man.  His  destiny  was  now  fixed. 
He  must  seek  a  way  of  escape.  What  might 
come  out  of  it  he  did  not  know  ;  but  he  could  not 
remain  longer  where  he  was.  He  must  seek  in 
solitude  for  balm  to  that  deep  heart-wound  which 
society  might  hide,  but  could  not  heal.  He 
determined  to  leave  the  Court  and  become  after 


Buddhism,  121 

the  fashion  of  Brahmanic  piety,  a  dweller  in  the 
lonely  glens,  a  recluse.  "  Through  desire  a  man 
having  separated  himself,  seeketh  and  inter- 
meddleth  with  all  wisdom."  So  said  Solomon  ; 
and  what  the  Hebrew  king  said,  the  Hindoo 
prince  did  to  the  extreme  letter. 

This  retiring  into  the  forest,  and  living  the  life 
of  a  pious  hermit  and  mendicant  devotee,  is  the 
second  significant  fact  in  the  career  of  this  singu- 
lar rehgionist.  He  was  a  philanthropist  of  the 
extreme  type,  and  a  monk  of  the  Oriental  type  ; 
and,  if  the  first  is  always  a  rare  virtue,  the  latter  is 
certainly  a  not  uncommon  folly.  To  plunge  from 
one  extreme  to  another,  overleaping  the  mean  of 
moderation  and  just  equipoise,  is  the  common 
weakness  of  humanity,  which  wise  men  in  all  ages 
have  studied  to  diminish,  but  have  in  vain  en- 
deavoured to  prevent.  The  rebound  from  ex- 
treme sensuality  to  extreme  spirituality — from 
wasteful  splendour  to  parsimonious  bareness — 
from  the  plethora  of  enjoyment  to  total  abstinence, 
is  exemplified  in  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  saints 
and  religious  persons  all  over  the  world,  and  need 
not  be  commented  on  here.  If  even  in  the  sober 
breast  of  European  Christians  such  sudden  revul- 
sions of  feeling  and  inversions  of  mortal  habitude 


122    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

are  not  uncommon,  how  natural  that  they  should 
appear  with  gigantic  proportions  in  the  over- 
charged religiosity  of  the  East ! 

The  extreme  form  which  moral  mortification  and 
religious  self-denial  delights  to  assume  in  the  East 
will  be  best  understood  by  observing  the  procedure 
of  Sakya  Muni  after  he  left  the  palace.  The  first 
thing  he  does  is  to  take  off  from  his  royal  head- 
dress the  precious  Mani  pearl,  and  giving  it  to  the 
faithful  Tchandaka,  thus  addressed  him  : — 

*'Tchandaka,  I  now  give  you  this  precious  Mani  pearl,  and  bid 
you  return  with  it  to  my  father  Suddhodana  Maharaja  ;  and  when 
arrived  in  his  presence,  after  due  salutation,  bid  him  dismiss  all 
grief  or  useless  regrets  on  my  account  ;  assure  him  that  I  am  in- 
fluenced by  no  delusion  in  leaving  him  thus,  nor  by  any  angry  or 
resentful  feeling;  tell  him  that  /  seek  no  personal  gain  or  profit  by 
what  I  do^  that  I  look  for  no  reward — not  even  to  be  born  in  heaven 
— but  that  I  seek  solely  the  benefit  of  tnen  (all  flesh),  to  bring  back 
those  who  have  wandered  from  the  right  path,  to  enlighten  those 
who  are  living  in  dark  and  gloomy  error,  to  save  them  froni  the 
constant  recurrence  of  birth  and  death,  to  remove  front  the  world 
all  sources  of  sorrow  and  pain— for  these  purposes  I  have  left  my 
home ;  and  so  my  loving  Father,  seeing  me  thus  rejoicing  in  carrying 
out  this  purpose,  should  shake  off  every  feeling  of  regret  and  sorrow 
on  my  account,  "j 

After  this  he  draws  his  sword  from  its  sheath, 
and  cuts  off  his  rosy,  curling  locks,  and,  n6t  con- 
tent with  that,  causes  a  hairdresser  with  a  razor  to 
appear,  and  make  a  clean  shave  of  all  the  hairy 


Buddhism.  123 

vesture  of  his  poll  ;  and,  to  complete  the  meta- 
morphosis, he  takes  off  his  splendid  purple  robe, 
and  puts  on  a  *'  dirty  and  much-soiled  kashyn  gar- 
ment." Being  thus  shorn  and  disrobed,  he  took 
a  solemn  oath  that  he  should  no  longer  be  known 
as  Prince  Siddartha,  but  by  no  other  n^me  than 
Mtrni,  or  the  Recluse. 

Undisturbed  by  the  rattle  of  busy  life,  and  un- 
seduced  by  the  attractions  of  sensual  pleasure  and 
light  frivohties,  in  the  solitude  of  the  forest  the 
thoughtful  prince  had  now  full  leisure  to  brood 
over  the  sins  and  sorrows  of  humanity,  and  to 
think  out  a  plan  of  salvation.  Converts  of  the 
common  stamp  do  not  take  long  to  excogitate  their 
remedy  for  the  moral  diseases  of  humanity :  they 
take  it  as  they  find  it  in  the  traditional  orthodox 
forms  of  their  country,  and,  after  going  through  a 
course  of  thorough  personal  reformation,  often 
dash  into  a  fervid  apostleship  with  the  ready-made 
shibboleths  of  their  creed,  applied  in  the  lump,  and 
with  no  attempt  at  discrimination,  to  all  and  sun- 
dry of  the  unconverted  multitude.  Apostles  of 
this  class  may  be  found  anywhere  in  these  islands  ; 
especially  in  Scotland,  where  they  make  the  street 
corners  and  the  public  squares  to  re-echo  with  their 
earnest,  shrill  appeals  to  the  careless  sinners  of  the 


124    The  Natural  History  of  Atheis7n. 

passing  crowd.  But  the  Sakyan  prince  had  a  more 
difficult  work  to  do.  He  could  not  accept  the 
Brahmanic  way  of  salvation  simply  as  he  found  it ; 
nay,  rather,  he  saw  in  that  whole  sacerdotal  system 
a  Pharisaic  pride,  a  narrow  exclusiveness,  a  shallow 
ceremonialism,  and  a  super-subtle  theology,  which 
repulsed  him ;  from  which  certainly  he  could  not 
hope  to  educe  any  catholic  remedy  for  the  wide- 
spread miseries  of  human  life.  He  had  therefore 
to  fashion  forth  a  system,  chiefly  ethical,  but  partly 
also  metaphysical,  for  himself;  and  this  he  is  repre- 
sented as  having  done  during  a  space  of  seven 
years,  without  any  help  from  man  or  God.  His 
system,  if  not  particularly  original  in  its  matter — ■ 
for  moral  truth  is  everywhere  the  same — was,  or  at 
least  claimed  to  be,  altogether  original  in  its  pro- 
duction. The  wells  of  living  water,  in  his  case, 
flowed  altogether  from  within,  were  the  pure  issue 
of  severe  and  long-continued  meditation  and  com- 
munion with  his  own  heart  in  the  leafy  solitudes. 
After  having  excogitated  his  doctrine,  the  next 
desire,  of  course,  in  a  character  possessed  with  his 
grand  rage  for  humanity,  was  to  promulgate  the 
way  of  salvation  to  his  fellows  ;  but  in  the  threshold 
of  this  purpose,  he  is  represented  as  overwhelmed 
with  blank  despair  when  he  thinks  of  the  stupidity 


Buddhism,  125 

and  sinfulness  of  the  creatures  whom  he  is  attempt- 
ing to  convert.*  This  was  a  natural  enough  temp- 
tation, felt  no  doubt  by  all,  more  or  less,  who  have 
made  any  serious  attempt  towards  the  reformation 
of  their  fellow-men  ;  but  men  of  John  Wesley's  or 
Sakya  Muni's  type  will  not  allow  themselves  ulti- 
mately to  be  turned  back  from  a  great  moral  enter- 
prise by  cowardly  considerations  of  this  kind  ;  and 
accordingly  we  find  that  when  he  was  wrestling 
with  such  discouraging  imaginations,  Maha  Brahma 
and  Indra,  two  of  the  mightiest  of  the  Hindoo  gods, 
visited  him  in  the  forest,  and  persuaded  him  forth- 
with to  commence  an  apostleship  for  the  conversion 
of  benighted  mortals.  Thus  strengthened,  he  girt 
himself  to  the  task  of  world-regeneration.  His  first 
attempts  were  made  at  Magadha,  where,  however, 
he  met  with  little  success  ;  t  but  at  the  sacred  city 
of  Benares,  whither  he  next  bent  his  steps,  he  made 
his  first  five  disciples ;  and  from  that  germ  the 
apostleship  began  to  burgeon  and  blossom  forth 
with  notable  success.  Unassisted  at  first  by  the 
civil  power,  and,  of  course,  with  much  opposition 
from  the  Pharisaic  priesthood,  and  the  devotees  of 
their  ceremonialism,  the  pure   moral   doctrine   of 

*  "  Etudes  Buddhiques,"  par  St.  Leon  Feer,  Paris,   1870,  p.  7. 
f  Feer,  p.  25. 


126    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

Sakya  Muni,  now  called  Buddha,*  made  a  conquest 
of  the  multitude,  like  Christianity,  mainly  by  the 
catholic  humanity  of  its  inspiration,  and  by  the 
noble  self-denying  character  of  its  author.  In  the 
course  of  time,  however,  just  as  Christianity  was 
placed  on  a  strong  ground  of  vantage  by  Constan- 
tine  in  the  year  323,  so  the  great  Buddhistic  heresy 
received  the  stamp  of  secular  respectability  from 
the  Emperor  Asoka  about  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  B.C. 

In  this  manner  the  grain  of  mustard  seed,  after 
the  usual  fashion  of  all  great  moral  reforms,  had 
grown  into  a  great  tree,  and  might  under  favoura- 
ble circumstances  have,  in  the  course  of  time,  pre- 
vailed so  far  as  utterly  to  extirpate  Brahmanism 
from  the  whole  district  between  the  Indus  and  the 
Ganges  ;  but  it  was  not  so.  After  generations  of 
hateful  reproach  and  humiliation  from  their  upstart 
antagonists,  the  Brahmans  found  themselves  strong 
enough  to  expel  the  Buddhists  from  India,  just  as 
Protestantism  was  expelled  from  the  south  of 
Europe  by  the  combined  conservatism  of  Italy, 
Spain,  France,  and  Austria.     But  here,  as   in  the 

*  The  words  Buddha  and  Boddha  are  the  Sanscrit  forms  of  the 
(^reek  oiSo  and  the  Latin  video,  signifying  kno7vledge  or  spiritual 
insight.  Plato's  (ppSvriais.  The  German  wissen  and  the  English 
ziiit  and  lijot  are  obvious  variations  of  the  same  root. 


Buddhism.  127 

obvious  parallel  of  Christianity,  persecution  and 
banishment  served  only  to  spread  the  seed  of  the 
doctrine,  and  to  ennoble  the  character  of  its  mis- 
sionaries ;  and  the  gospel  of  Sakya  Muni  made 
moral  conquest  of  miUions  of  human  souls  through 
the  extensive  regions  of  Ceylon,  Burmah,  China, 
Thibet,  and  Japan,  which  amply  compensated  for 
its  total  disappearance  in  its  original  seats  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna. 

So  much  for  the  outward  scene,  and  the  exter- 
nal fates  of  this  most  notable  type  of  oriental  piety. 
Let  us  now  look  steadily  on  its  internal  character 
and  moral  features.  We  have  mentioned  already, 
what  is  agreed  on  all  hands,  that  the  Buddlstic 
system  must  be  regarded  as  a  protest  against  the 
extreme  sacerdotalism  of  the  existing  Brahmanic 
system,*  and  in  this  respect  there  is  a  perfect 
analogy  between  the  position  of  Buddha  as  a  re- 
ligious reformer,  and  that  of  Christ  In  his  antago- 
nism to  the  Pharisees,  as  also  that  of  Martin  Luther 
in  his  opposition  to  the  Roman  hierarchy.  There 
is,  however,  this  Important  difference  to  be  observed 

*  It  is  noteworthy,  in  this  view,  that  in  choosing  his  form  of 
incarnation,  the  destined  Buddha  chooses  to  be  born  in  the  secular 
caste  of  Kshatryas,  or  warriors,  rejecting  the  sacerdotal  type  of  the 
Brahmins.     Beal,  p.  30. 


128    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

between  Buddha  and  these  two  cases  :  Buddha 
rejected  altogether,  or  at  least  ignored,  the  whole 
strictly  theological  foundation  of  the  Brahmanic 
creed  which  was  his  cradle  ;  whereas,  the  mono- 
theism of  the  Hebrews,  with  all  its  accompani- 
ments, passed  unquestioned  into  Christianity,  as 
did  likewise  the  theology  of  the  Christian 
Churches,  always  of  course  with  the  exception  of 
some  later  Roman  excrescences,  into  the  Protestant- 
ism of  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Zwingle.  What  Bud- 
dha preached  was  a  gospel  of  pure  human  ethics, 
divorced  not  only  from  Brahma  and  the  Brahmanic 
Trinity,  but  even  from  the  existence  of  God  :  so 
that,  while  his  moral  discourses  come  upon  the  ear, 
in  many  respects,  like  an  echo  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  there  is  one  sentence  in  that  sermon 
which  could  not  possibly  occur  in  any  of  Buddha's 
exhortations.  '*  Be  YE  THEREFORE  PERFECT, 
EVEN    AS    YOUR    FATHER    WHO    IS   IN   HEAVEN  IS 

perfect" — whereas  the  constant  and  consistent 
voice  of  the  Indian  Messiah  was.  Be  YE  THERE- 
FORE PERFECT,  EVEN  AS  I,  BUDDHA,  AM  PERFECT. 
And  in  this  view,  we  may  certainly  say  that  the 
preaching  of  Buddha,  viewed  as  to  its  contents, 
was  not  so  much  a  religion  as  a  philosophy  ;  a 
philosophy,     however,     published     according     to 


Buddhism,  129 

popular  belief,  not  by  a  vulgar  mortal  like  Zeno, 
or  Marcus  Antoninus,  but  by  an  altogether  tran- 
scendental personage,  or  god-man,  who,  if  he  did 
not  worship  any  Being  higher  than  himself,  as  he 
seems  certainly,  according  to  sacred  tradition,  not 
to  have  done,  could  not  avoid  being  worshipped 
by  the  millions  of  mortals  whom  his  teaching  re- 
deemed, or  seemed  to  have  redeemed,  from  earthly 
sin  and  sorrow  and  shame  into  a  state  of  holiness, 
peace  of  mind,  and  unspeakable  beatitude. 

Let  us  now  state  under  distinct  heads  the  main 
points  of  his  doctrine,  philosophical  and  ethical ; 
for,  though  he  had  no  theology,  strictly  so  called, 
as  a  thinking  man  he  could  not  avoid  entertaining 
certain  opinions  about  human  life  and  man's  posi- 
tion on  the  earth,  out  of  which,  as  from  a  root, 
his  moral  system  grew  into  shape. 

And  in  the  first  place  here  we  encounter  the 
startling  doctrine  that  existence,  at  least  such  ex- 
istence as  human  beings  brook  on  this  earth,  is  an 
evil,  not  a  good.  The  conditions  of  human  life, 
according  to  Buddha,  necessarily  imply  evil  ;  and 
therefore  to  get  rid  of  evil  we  must  get  rid  of 
human  life  altogether,  at  least  of  human  hfe  under 
its  present  limitations  and  degrading  conditions. 
The    four   evils    under  which   the   whole    creation 


130   The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism, 

groaneth  even  until  now  are  BIRTH,  OLD  AGE, 
DISEASE,  and  DEATH  ;  and  these  must  be  abso- 
lutely and  altogether  swept  out  of  the  account, 
before  anything  like  a  reasonable  happiness  can  be 
expected  to  arise.  Christianity  was  content,  in  St. 
PauVs  language,  to  take  away  the  sting  from 
death,  and  victory  from  the  grave  ;  but  the  Indian 
transcendentalist  will  not  be  content  with  any  such 
vulgar  ambition  ;  he  must  "  save  all  flesh  from  the 
fearful  ocean  of  birth  and  death."  *  This  extraordi- 
nary dogma,  which  sounds  as  monstrous  to  a  sane 
ear  as  the  stoical  paradox  that  pain  is  no  evil,  and 
pleasure  no  good,  becomes  intelligible  only  when 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  doctrine  of  transmigra- 
tion of  souls— a  doctrine  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
all  oriental  anthropology,  just  as  the  fall  of  man 
does  in  the  theological  system  of  our  Christian 
Churches.  By  the  fall  of  man,  as  theologians 
teach,  the  human  race  lies  under  a  curse,  and,  so 
long  as  this  curse  remains,  life,  though  enjoyed  in 
a  low  way  by  unregenerate  persons,  is  in  reahty 
a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing ;  and  becomes  a 
blessing  only  to  those  who  are  redeemed  from  the 
curse  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus  and  the  moral  regen- 
eration produced  through  that  faith.  The  ori- 
*  Beal,  p.  137. 


Buddhism.  131 

ental  theology,  while  it  abstains  from  tracing  the 
sorrows  of  the  race  to  a  federal  head,  derives  the 
"sorrows  of  the  individual  from  sins  of  the  indivi- 
dual committed  in  a  previous  stage,  or  rather 
many  previous  stages  of  existence ;  and  the  only 
way  to  get  rid  of  them  is  by  accumulating  such 
an  amount  of  moral  merit,  in  various  successive 
existences,  as  may  enable  the  virtuous  person  to 
rise  at  last  above  all  conditions  of  sorrowful  human 
existence  into  a  super-mundane  state  of  uncon- 
ditioned beatitude,  in  the  Sanscrit  language  tech- 
nically termed  NiRWANA.  Seen  from  this  tran- 
scendental point  of  view,  human  existence,  in  the 
exaggerated  language  familiar  to  the  East,  may  be 
said  to  be  an  undesirable  thing,  and  a  curse  rather 
than  a  blessing ;  at  all  events  as  only  a  somewhat 
uncomfortable  stage  in  a  long  journey  full  of  stages 
more  or  less  uncomfortable,  and  on  no  occasion 
creating  the  feeling  of  a  happy  home.  What  are 
called  the  pleasures  of  life,  in  this  view,  are  all 
more  or  less  delusions,  of  which  a  wise  man  should 
get  rid  as  soon  as  possible  :  life  itself,  with  all  its 
gay  parade  and  glittering  show,  is,  from  this  higher 
point  of  view,  a  delusion  ;  it  is  all  fleeting  and 
momentary,  and  possesses  no  permanency  which  a 
man  can  firmly  grasp  ;  it  is  a  hollow  vanity ;  and 


132    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

the  sting  of  the  curse  which  belongs  to  it  lies 
mainly  here,  that  its  most  vaunted  pleasures  are 
its  most  deadly  poisons,  and  its  most  florid  flush 
of  health  a  veil  for  rottenness  in  the  bones. 

So  much  for  the  curse  of  human  life.  How 
now  are  we  to  get  rid  of  it  ? — only  in  one  way, 
just  as  you  would  get  rid  of  a  house  on  fire  ;  run 
out  by  the  back  door,  or  let  yourself  down  from  a 
window,  as  may  happen  to  be  practicable.  To 
escape  from  the  miseries  of  human  life,  we  must  as 
far  as  possible  withdraw  ourselves  from  the  great 
current,  struggle,  and  contest  of  the  world  ;  we 
must  mortify  our  desires,  control  our  passions, 
practise  moderation  in  all  things  and  abstinence  in 
not  a  few,  and  generally  cultivate  a  lofty  indiffer- 
ence to  vulgar  human  interests,  and  a  spirit  of 
serene  quietude  far  beyond  and  above  the  turbid 
tides  and  gusty  storms  of  passion  that  fill  the 
hearts  of  men  with  fret,  disappointment,  and  de- 
spair. 

The  student  of  the  moral  and  religious  history 
of  society  will  recognise  that  he  has  nothing  here 
but  stoicism,  tinged  with  a  very  strong  touch  of 
oriental  asceticism,  and  rooted  in  certain  strange 
transcendental  notions  about  the  pre-existence  and 
post-existence  of  human  souls.     But  in  addition  to 


Buddhism,  133 

this  lofty  stoicism  and  philosophic  indifference  to 
the  petty  passions  and  troubles  of  human  life,  we 
have  in  Buddha  the  evangelic  element  of  doing 
good  to  others — the  missionary  spirit,  what  Dr. 
Chalmers  used  to  call  the  aggressive  attitude  of 
Christianity.  Retirement  from  the  world ;  soli- 
tary meditation  on  the  realities  of  the  moral  life, 
and  the  fleeting  nature  of  all  sensuous  shows  and 
pleasures  ;  self-control  and  self-restraint  ;  and 
active  benevolence;  these  four  chapters  contain 
all  that  is  practically  significant  in  the  ethics  of 
Buddhism,  and  which,  in  fact,  do  not  differ  mate- 
rially from  Christian  ethics,  except  in  the  self-con - 
tainedness  and  self-assertiveness  of  their  transcen- 
dental stoicism.  But  it  will  give  vividness  to  the 
picture,  if  we  add  a  few  passages  of  their  ethical 
teaching  in  their  own  language.  The  vision  of  the 
three  great  sorrows  which,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
the  means  of  leading  the  Sakyan  prince  to  serious 
thinking,  was  succeeded  on  another  occasion  by  a 
fourth  apparition,  which  is  narrated  in  the  Chinese 
book  as  follows  : — 


"Then  the  prince,  having  set  out  on  his  excursion,  the  Devapu- 
tra  by  his  spiritual  power  caused  to  appear,  not  far  in  front  of  the 
chariot,  a  inan  with  a  shaven  crown  and  wearifig  a  Sahghdti  robe^ 
with  his  right  shoulder  bare,  in  his  right  hand  a  religious  staff,  in 


134    ^-^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

his  left  hand  holding  a  mendicanf  s  alms  bowl,  and  so  going  with 
measured  pace  along  the  road.  The  prince  having  observed  this 
figure  before  him,  asked  the  coachman — *  Dear  Coachman  !  who  is 
this  man  in  front  of  me,  proceeding  with  such  slow  and  dignified 
steps,  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor  the  left,  with,  fixed  attention, 
his  head  shaven,  his  garments  of  a  reddish  earthen  colour,  unlike 
the  white-clad  mendicants,  his  alms  dish  too  of  a  purplish  shining 
hue,  like  the  stone  "  toi  "  ?  ' 

"  Then  the  Devaputra  T'so-Ping  excited  the  coachman  to  an- 
swer thus — 'Holy  youth  and  illustrious  prince  !  this  person  is  call- 
ed a  mendicant  (parivrdjika).^ 

*'  Then  the  prince  asked  again,  *  And  what  is  the  calling  and  con- 
duct of  a  mendicant  ? ' 

"  The  coachman  answered,  *  Great  prince  !  this  man  coft- 
stantly  practises  virttce,  and  avoids  wrong;  he  gives  himself  to 
charity,  and  restrains  his  appetites  and  his  bodily  desires  ;  he  is  in 
agreement  with  all  men,  and  hurts  nobody,  neither  killing  nor 
poisoning  any  one  ;  but,  as  far  as  he  caft,  he  does  good  to  all,  and 
is  full  of  sympathy  for  all.  Prince  !  for  this  reason  he  is  called  a 
mendicant.'  '  If  this  be  so,'  said  the  prince,  *  and  he  is  of  such  a  dis- 
position, drive  up  to  him,  O  coachman  !  and  let  me  speak  to  him.' 
This  done,  the  prince  addressed  the  mendicant  and  said,  '  Honour- 
ed Sir  !  tell  me,  I  pray  you,  what  man  you  are  ! '  At  this  time  the 
Devaputra  T'so-Ping  by  his  spiritual  power  caused  him  to  answer 
thus — '  Great  Prince  !  I  am  called  a  mendicant  ! '  '  And  what  is 
that?'  inquired  the  prince.  *  It  is  one,'  the  mendicant  rejoined, 
^who  has  left  the  world  and  its  ways,  who  has  forsaken  friends 
aftd  home  in  order  to  find  deliverance  for  hij7iself,  and  desires 
nothing  so  much  as  by  some  expedient  or  other  to  give  life  to  all 
creatures  and  to  do  harf?t  to  no?te ;  for  this  reason.^  O  prince  !  I 
am,  called  a  mendicant  (parivrdjika,  homeless  one)  J* 

"Then  the  prince,  resuming  the  conversation  said,  'Venerable 
one  !  and  what  is  the  character  of  the  preparation  necessary  for 
arriving  at  this  condition  ?  '  (To  which  the  mendicant  replied), 
'  Illustrious  youth  !  if  you  are  able  to  behold  (or  regard)  all  objects 
of  sense  (sansara)  [or  the  Samskdras,  vide  Introd.,  p.  505,  n.]  as 
impermanent,  to  think  no  evil  and  do  none  ;    but,  on  the  contrary, 


Buddhism,  135 

to  benefit  all  creatures  (by  your  life  and  teaching)  then  this  will  lead 
to  the  condition  of  a  mendicant ;  as  the  Gatha  says — 

"To  regard  all  earthly  things  as  perishable  ; 
To  desire  above  all  things  the  condition  of  Nirvana, 
Done  with  hatred  or  love,  the  heart  equally  affected, 
Freed  from  all  earthly  objects  of  desire  ; 
Frequenting  the  solitaiy  pits  or  forests  or  beneath  a  tree, 
Or  dwelling  on  the  cold  earth  in  the  place  of  tombs, 
Thoroughly  emancipated  from  all  personal  consideration, 
This  is  the  way  to  regard  the  character  of  a  mendicant."  '  " 

Here  it  will  be  observed  that  the  ideal  of  the 
Buddhist  saint  is  a  monk  ;  a  feature  in  which  it 
differs  essentially  both  from  Christianity  and  Hel- 
lenic stoicism,  of  which  the  ideal  was  an  active 
life  :  a  reasonable  harmony  with  a  reasoned  uni- 
verse, according  to  Zeno  ;  a  faith  in  the  Divine 
government  of  the  world,  working  by  love,  ac- 
cording to  St.  Paul. 

In  reply  to  a  seductive  band  of  female  beauties, 
who  had  been  sent  by  Mara,  the  evil  spirit  or 
Hindoo  devil,  to  turn  him  from  his  purpose  of  a 
holy  life,  Boddhi-satva — that  is,  the  hermit-prince 
with  the  destiny  of  complete  Buddhaship  in  his 
breast, — is  represented  as  using  the  following  lan- 
guage :— 

**  All  those  pleasures  in  which  the  world  indulges 
Are  sources  of  sorrow,  sin,  and  distress  ! 
By  reason  of  this,  the  worldling  loses  all  spiritual  discernment ; 


136    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

Clouded  with  ignorance,  he  lives  in  darkness  and  gloom. 

Men  are  never  satisfied  with  the  enjoyment  of  these  things, 

But    I  long  ago  have  utterly  discarded  them,  and  escaped  from 

their  slavery. 
As  a  man  flees  from  a  burning  furnace,  or  a  poisonous  drug  j 
I  have  long  since  given  up  these  sources  of  sorrow. 
I  have-  tasted  of  the  water  of  eternal  wisdom ; 
My  heart  enlightened,  I  desire  to  enlighten  others, 
And  to  declare  the  doctrine  of  the  most  excellent  law. 
But  if  I  were  to  partake  of  these  polluting  pleasures, 
Then  I  should  in  the  end  fail  to  attain  wisdom, 
For  it  is  by  continuing  in  these  deceitful  pleasures. 
That  a  man  acquires  the  infection  of  folly  and  sin, 
Neither  profitable  to  himself  nor  able  to  profit  others ; 
I,  therefore,  desire  not  these  things — I  cast  them  away. 
It  is  these  pleasures  that  burn  up  all  living  things, 
Even  as  the  fire  at  the  end  of  time  burns  the  world. 
They  are  perishable  as  the  bubble  that  rises  on  the  water, 
Light  as  a  dream,  unreal  as  a  phantom, 
Hollow  and  false,  deceiving  the  worldly-wise  ; 
But  the  man  of  true  wisdom  finds  no  delight  therein. 
Just  as  you  see  the  child  with  his  fellows 
Playing  and  polluting  himself  with  filth, 
So  is  the  ignorant  and  besotted  man  polluted  by  these  ; 
He  sees  the  dazzling  sheen  of  the  jewelled  trinket. 
And  forthwith  there  arises  in  him  a  covetous  desire. 
That  hair  of  yours  which  grows  from  the  brain, 
What  pollution,  sores,  and  ulcers  it  generates  ; 
Your  teeth,  that  are  secretly  shed  one  by  one ; 
Your  lips  and  nose  and  mouth  and  eyes. 
They  are  but  as  the  bubble  for  permanence. 
Your  waist  and  loins,  your  buttocks  and  hams, 
What  pollution  is  here,  proceeding  from  the  blood  ; 
And  what  impurities,  the  effect  of  indulgence. 
The  man  who  delights  in  these  is  foolish 
As  one  who  makes  a  millstone  to  grind  his  own  body. 
And  therefore  every  one  who  is  wise. 


Btcddhisin,  137 

Distinguishing  these  matters,  as  I  have  shown, 

Will  reject  and  forsake  all  such  false  delights. 

He  will  behold  his  body,  day  and  night  circulating  its  blood, 

As  the  receptacle  of  that  which  is  unclean,  and  find  no  joy  in  be- 
holding it. 

So  it  is  I  see  you,  standing  before  my  eyes 

As  a  phantom,  a  dream,  an  unreal  appearance — 

For  all  things  spring  from  connection  of  cause  and  effect., 

These  pleasures  are  in  themselves  false  and  delusive  ; 

By  these,  men  are  drawn  away  from  the  path  of  happiness, 

And  led  captive  along  the  ways  of  misery— 

They  are  as  a  fiery  furnace. 

As  vessels  full  of  poison — 

As  the  head  of  an  angry  snake  not  to  be  touched, 

The  causes  of  ignorance  and  delusion  and  death  ; 

Whoever  tampers,  then,  with  these, 

Deserting  the  path  of  purity  and  wisdom. 

Shall  in  the  end,  without  doubt,  perish  in  Hell. 

So,  then,  having  let  go  these  things,  and  forsaken  them, 

I  am  now  free  as  the  air  or  as  space,  which  cannot  be  bound  with 
a  chain,  etc." 

After  these  two  passages  it  seems  unnecessary 
to  enlarge  further  on  the  special  character  of  Bud- 
dhistic morality.  That  it  is  remarkably  pure,  and 
in  much  of  its  tincture  and  tone  closely  reflecting 
the  ethics  of  the  Gospel,  especially  as  they  are 
manifested  in  the  organism  of  the  Romish  Church, 
is  sufficiently  evident.  It  aimed  to  be  perfectly 
successful,  and,  no  doubt,  in  the  person  of  its 
founder  was  perfectly  successful  in  achieving  the 
practice  of  self-restraint,  of  great  patience  and 
endurance,  of  fearless  courage,  and  victorious  voli- 


138    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

tlon.  It  succeeded  in  the  annihilation  of  all  covet- 
ousness ;  by  the  renunciation  of  property  and 
women  every  other  abstinence  was  rendered  easy, 
and  the  negative  morality  achieved  its  most  com- 
plete triumph  ;  *  lust  and  strife  and  anger,  and  all 
the  painful  twinges  of  doubt  in  the  bosom  of  the 
unstable  and  double-minded,  disappeared.  The 
innumerable  evils  that  proceed  from  the  aggres- 
siveness of  selfish  passion,  and  the  lust  of  appro- 
priation, were  cut  off  by  the  root ;  the  various 
forms  of  cruelty  practised  by  man  to  man,  and 
towards  the  brute  creation,  found  no  place  among 
the  disciples  of  the  pure  and  perfect  Buddha  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  whatever  highest  pleasures 
flowed  from  the  habitual  exercise  of  the  benevolent 
affections  were  theirs  in  full  measure,  whose  greed 
was  not  fed  by  the  desire  of  accumulation,  and 
whose  ambition  was  not  stimulated  by  the  love  of 
power. 

We  now  come  to  that  special  point  in  the  Bud- 
dhistic doctrine  which  occasioned  its  being  woven 
into  the  tissue  of  these  papers  ;  viz.  its  alleged 
Atheism.  And,  in  order  to  clear  up  this  matter, 
we  must  start  with  a  distinction  in  all  such   cases 

*  Feer,  p.  34-37. 


BicddhisTn,  139 

too  apt  to  be  forgotten  :  the  distinction  between 
the  religious  beHef  and  personal  convictions  of  the 
founder  of  a  creed,  and  the  belief  of  those  who 
accept  him  as  the  prophet  of  that  creed.  Some- 
times, no  doubt,  these  two  beliefs  may  be  the 
same  ;  as  when  Mahomet  preached  that  there  is 
one  God  and  Mahomet  is  his  prophet,  this  sen- 
tence contained  the  pith  both  of  his  personal  creed 
and  of  the  faith  of  his  orthodox  followers.  But 
the  case  of  Buddha,  as  we  shall  see,  is  different  ; 
he  was  a  great  deal  more  than  a  prophet ;  a  rare, 
exceptional,  and  altogether  transcendental  incar- 
nation of  moral  perfection  ;  and  in  such  case  it 
might  well  be,  or  rather  by  necessity  was,  that  the 
creed  of  the  disciples  .contained  at  least  one  im- 
portant article  more  than  the  creed  of  their 
master.  In  what  exact  terms  the  historical  Bud- 
dha expressed  his  atheism  or  agnosticism  we  have 
no  evidence  ;  but  the  omission  of  all  direct 
acknowledgment  of  a  great  original  First  Cause, 
the  supreme  object  of  worship,  in  the  legendary 
accounts,  as  well  as  the  whole  tone  and  spirit  of 
the  sacred  traditions  afford  moral  evidence  of  the 
most  satisfactory  kind  that  Buddha  acknowledged 
no  being  superior  to  himself;  scarcely,  indeed, 
could    have    done   so,  consistently  with  the  tran- 


I40   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

scendental  excellence  which  his  followers  believed 
to  be  inherent  in  his  personality.  In  the  Chinese 
version  of  the  traditions  there  is  only  one  occasion 
on  which  Buddha  is  represented  as  praying  to  any 
heavenly  Powers  ;  and  this  occasion  was  on  his 
entrance  on  a  religious  Hfe,  when,  of  course,  he 
was  far  from  perfection.  As  he  left  the  palace, 
and  bade  final  adieu  to  all  the  pleasures  of  sense, 
**  he  stood  at  the  eastern  door  with  closed  hands," 
says  the  book,  '*  and  invoked  all  the  Buddhas," 
or,  as  it  has  sometimes  been  translated,  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit:  *' after  which,  raising  his  head,  he 
looked  up  into  heaven  and  beheld  the  countless 
stars  of  the  night."*  But  this  text  is  not  sufficient 
to  prove  that  Buddha  acknowledged  a  Supreme 
Cause  in  the  theological  sense  of  the  word,  much 
less  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  offering  up  prayers 
to  any  such  god  of  gods.  There  were  devas  and 
gods  enough  in  the  popular  belief,  powerful  devas 
and  devils  too,  as  the  sacred  legends  abundantly 
show,  but  they  could  be  no  objects  of  worship  to 
a  being  of  such  transcendental  excellence  as  Bud- 
dha, rather  by  their  very  nature  could  only  minis- 
ter to  him,  as  the  angels  to  Christ  in  the  Garden 
of  Gethsemane.  As  a  religious  reformer,  we  have 
*  Beal,  p.  131. 


Buddhism,  141 

said  that  Buddha  was  not  merely  a  devotee  and  a 
philanthropist,  but  a  thinker  and  a  philosopher, 
and  in  this  capacity  we  have  it  distinctly  on  record 
that  he  either  did  not  admit  the  existence  of  what 
the  Hindoos  call  Ishwara — a  Supreme  Creator, 
— or  at  least  refused  to  admit  such  an  idea  as 
a  fundamental  notion  in  the  gospel  by  which  he 
was  to  redeem  the  world  from  sin  and  misery. 
There  is  a  remarkable  conversation  on  this  subject 
between  him  and  Alara,  one  of  the  great  doctors 
of  the  Brahmanic  theology,  which  deserves  to  be 
read  with  particular  attention.     It  is  as  follows  : — 

"  The  discourse  then  proceeds  to  a  consideration  of  the  power 
called  self-existence  (Isvara),  and  the  consequent  possibility  of 
creation.  Bodhisatwa  objects  to  creation  by  Isvara,  because  then 
there  could  be  no  succession  of  events,  no  causes  of  sorrovjr,  no 
variety  of  Gods,  but  all  men  would  regard  Isvara  as  their  Father — 
there  could  be  no  disputes  about  this  very  subject,  whether  Isvara 
exists  or  not — in  short,  if  Isvara  created  all  things,  then  all  things 
must  have  been  Good,  and  there  could  have  been  no  possibility  of  evil. 

"On  this,  Alara  commends  the  great  wisdom  of  Bodhisatwa,  but 
deprecates  further  discussion  on  the  gi'ound  that  unless  there  be  a 
power  beyond  ourselves  capable  of  creating  and  sustaining  the  world, 
that  the  great  problem  of  the  source  of  evil  or  trouble  can  never  be 
solved  ;  for  he  said,  either  Karma  or  the  Body  existed  first — if 
Karma  was  not  caused  by  the  previous  existence  of  the  body,  then 
who  made  it,  and  whence  came  it  ?  But  if  the  body  existed  before 
Karma,  then  it  existed  independently  of  it.  In  either  case  there 
must  have  been  a  Creator. 

"  To  which  Bodhisatwa  replied,  '  I  dispute  not  with  you  on  this 
groimd,  but  as  a  man  who  participates  in  the  great  mass   of  evil 


142    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

which  exists,  I  seek  only  a  physician  to  give  me  health,  I  throw  no 
further  difficulties  in  the  way.' 

"On  this,  one  of  the  ascetics  greatly  commends  Bodhisatwa,  on 
the  ground  that  all  religious  disputes  and  controversies,  where  the 
object  is  victory  only,  certainly  lead  to  hatred  and  greater  evils  than 
any  good  they  can  effect. 

*'  '  But  although,'  Bodhisatwa  says,  '  I  desire  not  to  wrangle, 
nevertheless  I  seek  a  condition  of  escape  that  admits  of  no  return 
to  life  and  its  troubles ; '  on  which  Alara  speaks  of  his  system  as 
teaching  this.  *  But  how?'  enquires  Bodhisatwa,  'at  one  moment 
you  speak  of  your  discipline  leading  to  a  definite  condition  of  Being 
(bhuva),  and  the  next  you  say  it  admits  of  no  return — this  is 
strange.' 

"  '  And  so  it  is,'  said  Alara,  *  for  this  condition  of  which  I  speak 
is  that  of  the  Great  Brahma,  whose  substantial  existence  is  one  of 
perfect  quietude,  without  beginning,  without  end  ;  without  bounds 
or  limits,  no  first  or  last,  his  operations  inexhaustible,  his  form 
without  parts  or  marks — immutable,  incorruptible.' 

"'But  if  this  be  so,'  said  Bodhisatwa,  '  what  becomes  of  him, 
and  who  is  He  when  at  the  end  of  the  Kalpa,  this  heaven  and 
earth,  even  up  to  the  abode  of  Sakra,  is  burnt  up  and  entirely  de- 
stroyed— where  then  is  your  Creator  ?  ' 

"  Alara  remained  silent,  with  a  quiet  smile  on  his  lips,  whilst  one 
of  his  disciples  greatly  commended  the  wisdom  of  Bodhisatwa,  but 
reminded  him  that  in  old  time  the  great  Rishis  all  attained  perfect 
wisdom  in  the  way  described  by  Alara — for  instance  (here  follows 
a  list  of  Rishis),  all  of  whom  entered  into  the  brightness  of  the  sun, 
and  attained  the  straight  path, 

*'  *  What  then  is  this  "  entering  into  the  brightness  of  the  sun  ?  "  ' 
enquired  Bodhisatwa,  *  and  i-f  I  worship  these,  how  can  1  admit 
the  idea  of  an  Isvara  or  Supreme  God,  who  alone  deserves  wor- 
ship ? '  Then  the  conviction  seized  Bodhisatwa,  that  this  system  of 
Alara  could  not  be  a  final  and  complete  exhibition  of  deliverance, 
and  his  heart  became  sad. 

"  Alara  perceiving  this,  rose  from  his  seat  and  addressed  Bod- 
hisatwa, '  What  then  is  the  system  of  deliverance,  beyond  the  one  I 
have  illustrated,  after  which  you  look  ?  ' 


Buddhism,  143 

'*  To  which  Bodhisatwa  replied,  *I  seek  a  system  m  which  ques- 
tions about  the  elements  shall  have  no  place — in  which  there  shall 
be  no  discussion  about  the  senses  or  their  objects — no  talk,  of  death 
or  birth,  disease  or  old  age — no  questioning  about  existence  (bhuva) 
or  non-existence,  about  eternity  or  non-eternity,  in  which  words 
shall  be  useless,  and  the  idea  of  the  boundless  and  illitnitable  (real- 
ized), but  not  talked  about.' 

*'  Then  he  added  this  Gatha  : 

"  '  In  the  beginning  there  was  neither  birth  or  death,  or  age  or 
disease. 
Neither  earth  or  water,  fire,  wind,  or  space, 
Then  there  was  no  need  of  a  Teacher  for  the  three  worlds. 
But  a  condition  of  perfect  freedom,  lasting,  pure,   and  self-con- 
tained.' " 

Possibly  one  element  in  Buddha's  objection  to 
an  Iswara,  as  expressed  in  this  passage,  may  be 
only  the  aversion  to  the  received  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  creation  of  all  things  out  of  nothing,  so 
commonly  heard  in  the  mouth  of  the  masters  of  phy- 
sical science  and  other  thinking  men  of  the  present 
generation  ;  and  this,  of  course, will  still  leave  room 
for  Buddha  being  an  orthodox  Pantheist,  accord- 
ing to  the  common  conception  of  Indian  theology. 
But  the  passage,  unfortunately,  affords  evidence 
of  a  general  dislike  in  Buddha's  mind  to  all  theolo- 
gical speculation.  '*  As  a  man  who  participates 
in  the  great  mass  of  evil  which  exists,"  says  he, 
*'I  seek  only  a  physician  to  give  me  health:" 
that  is,  I  am   a  practical    man,  my   mission   is   to 


144   ^^^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

preach  redemption  from  the  course  of  sin,  by  the 
practice  of  virtue  ;  and  I  do  not  see  that  curious 
speculation  about  the  creation  of  the  world  can 
help  me  in  my  work.  Nay,  rather  I  do  see  that 
many  learned  Brahmins  occupy  themselves  with 
speculations  about  Trimurti  and  other  theological 
formulas,  while  the  world  around  them  is  lying  in 
sin  and  wretchedness.  This  is  somewhat  like  the 
tone  of  our  own  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  men  of  his 
school  ;  and  no  doubt  is  amongst  the  most  plausi- 
ble and  pardonable  forms  that  the  absurdity  of 
atheism  or  agnosticism  can  assume.  There  are 
other  points  in  this  same  discourse,  which  plainly 
point  to  an  identity  of  Buddha's  negative  philoso- 
phy with  that  of  the  great  English  Utilitarian. 
The  existence  of  evil  is  a  stumbling-block  to  both. 
"If  there  had  been  a  Creator,  all  things  would 
have  been  good;  and  there  would  be  no  possibility 
of  evil."  There  is  no  need  of  answering  this  ob- 
jection formally  here  ;  it  is  manifestly  not  a  whit 
better  than  saying  that  because  a  man  can  imagi-ne 
something  which  he  thinks  better  in  the  construc- 
tion of  our  existing  steam-engines,  therefore  there 
was  no  James  Watt.  The  existence  of  evil  can  no 
more  prove  the  non-existence  of  a  supreme  author 
of  good,  than  the   existence  of  a   rainy   day  can 


Buddhism,  145 

prove  the  non-existence  of  the  sun.  Evil  is  a 
mere  term  of  relative  inconvenience,  and  has  no 
meaning  in  the  harmonious  totality  of  the  divinely- 
regulated  system  of  the  universe.  Another  of 
Buddha's  difficulties  in  this  passage  recalls  Mill : 
**  If  there  was  an  Iswaray"  says  the  son  of  Sud- 
daohana,  **  there  coidd  be  7to  succession  of  events y 
Strange  ;  when  he  is  just  the  eternal  centre  from 
which  all  successions  must  necessarily  be  supposed 
to  proceed  :  but  observe,  this  is  merely  an  oriental 
statement  of  the  famous  doctrine  of  invariable 
sequence,  which  Mill  and  his  school  use  as  a  shib- 
boleth to  juggle  the  idea  of  a  great  First  Cause  out 
of  the  world.  That  all  things  are  connected  to- 
gether by  a  necessary  law  of  cause  and  effect,  is 
Buddha's  fundamental  principle  of  metaphysics. 

"  Whoever,  practising    the   rules   of   a    Brahmana,   observes   the 

world  around  him  (tchu-fa,  ye  danima). 
Sees  at  once  that  these  things  are  produced  by  mutual  relation- 

ship  ; 
Perceiving  that  the  world  around  him  is  produced  by  this  mutual 

dependence. 
He  recognises  then  that  all pheJiomena  are  but  the  result  of  cause 

and  effect.^''  * 

And  in  many  other  passages.  Now  how  is  it  that 
in  Buddha's   mind,  as  in  the  system  of  J.  S.  Mill 

*  This  seems   to  be  the  well-known  stanza,    "Ye  damma  hetu 
prabhasa,"  etc. 


146    The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism. 

and  his  school,  this  notion  of  invariable  sequence 
and  necessary  interdependence  should  connect  it- 
self with  such  an  unreasoned  absurdity  as  atheism. 
Simply  thus  : — Every  popular  theology  delights 
in  ignoring  the  chain  of  what  we  call  secondary 
causes,  and  substituting  for  them  the  direct  action 
of  a  God  specially  intervening  and  interfering  at 
the  call  of  the  believer.  Whatsoever  is  done  in 
the  world  is  done  directly  by  God,  at  the  instance 
and  for  the  benefit  of  me,  his  worshipper.  This 
is  everywhere  the  theology  of  what  our  theolo- 
gians call  the  natural  man  ;  and  it  is  only  natural 
that  such  an  altogether  false  and  degrading  idea 
of  the  Divine  procedure  should  be  met  by  the 
scientific  assertion  of  necessary  sequence  and  in- 
variable law.  But  philosophers  like  Buddha  and 
Mill,  who  have  the  largeness  of  view  to  see  the 
absurdity  of  subjecting  the  scheme  of  Divine  action 
in  a  vast  and  various  universe  to  the  momentary 
conveniences  of  a  petty  individual,  should  also  not 
fail  to  observe  that  an  invariable  sequence,  and  a 
constant  dependence,  is  inconceivable  without  a 
persistent  inherent  or  underlying  Something  which, 
by  its  unifying  action,  makes  variability  invariable, 
and  dependence  not  accidental  ! 

We  thus  see  how  Gotama,  whether  from  having 


Buddhis7n»  147 

been  brought  up  under  the  influence  of  a  sceptical 
school  of  metaphysics — and  India  has  always  been 
fertile  in  all  schools  of  metaphysics — or  from  the 
idiosyncrasy  of  his  own  mind,  while  starting  as  a 
religious  reformer,  had  the  strange  misfortune  of 
being  forced  to  throw  behind  his  back  the  great 
lever-power  and  key-stone  of  all  religion,  the  idea 
of  God.  Had  he  then  nothing  but  simple  morality 
to  preach  ?  Was  he  an  Asiatic  Zeno,  or  Epicte- 
tus,  and  nothing  more  ?  Could  he  conquer  the 
world  by  cold,  stoical  morality,  and  sublime  asceti- 
cism alone  ?  No.  He  required  something  more  ; 
and  he  found  it  in  that  wide-spread  oriental  doc- 
trine, to  which  we  have  already  adverted,  THE 
TRANSMIGRATION  OF  SOULS.  This  doctrine,  in 
the  mind  of  the  general  Enghsh  reader,  is  a  mere 
Pythagorean  fancy,  of  which  traces  are  found  also 
among  the  Jews,  at  the  time  of  our  Lord  (John  ix. 
2)  ;  but,  in  order  to  comprehend  Buddhism,  we 
must  seize  upon  this  fancy  as  a  living  fact  in  the 
popular  religions  of  the  East ;  as  part  of  the  very 
atmosphere  of  all  religious  hfe,  and  the  substratum 
of  all  oriental  theology.  The  slightest  acquaint- 
ance with  the  common  books  of  Brahmanic  wis- 
dom—  such  as  the  Hitopadesa  —  will  show  how 
deeply  this  notion  lies  at  the   very  roots  of  the 


148    The  Natural  Histoiy  of  Atheism, 

whole  moral  life  of  the  Hindoos.  It  was  a  doc- 
trine, like  the  virtue  of  ascetism,  which  Buddha 
did  not  invent,  but  accepted  simply  as  he  found  it. 
Logical  proof  of  such  a  doctrine  there  was  none  ; 
but  it  served  admirably  so  far  to  explain  the  exist- 
ence of  moral  evil  in  the  world,  and  was  at  the 
same  time  a  striking  and  constantly  present  exem- 
plification of  Gotama's  metaphysical  doctrine  of 
necessary  sequence,  or  invariable  law,  which,  as 
we  have  seen  in  his  system,  has  usurped  the  func- 
tions of  the  Divine  Reason  and  the  Divine  volition. 
And  it  will  readily  be  confessed,  that  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  habitual  reference  to  the  Divine  will  in 
the  exercise  of  that  living  faith  which  St.  Paul  so 
philosophically  defines  in  the  Hebrews  (xi.  i.) 
there  is  no  moral  lever  that  a  religious  teacher 
could  wield  with  more  effect  than  this  doctrine  of 
metempsychosis.  For  see  how  it  works.  The 
life  of  man  on  this  earth  is  not  an  isolated  phenom- 
enon ;  it  is  the  sequence  of  many  lives  that  have 
preceded  it,  by  a  necessary  chain  of  moral  causa- 
tion, and  the  precedent  of  many  lives  that  by  the 
continuation  of  the  same  chain  of  cosmic  interde- 
pendence shall  follow  it.  By  virtue  of  this  chain 
of  necessary  moral  sequence,  the  evils  and  the 
blessings,  or  rather  the   exemption   from    certain 


Buddhism,  149 

worse  forms  of  evil  In  terrestrial  life,  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  retributive  consequence  of  vices  or 
virtues  practised  in  previous  stages  of  existence  ; 
as  in  like  manner  no  vice  indulged  in  here  can 
remain  without  its  propagated  seed  of  misery 
in  a  future  state,  and  no  virtue  can  be  prac- 
tised without  insuring  a  certain  necessary  re- 
ward, or  necessary  issue  of  merit  in  some  future 
phasis  of  transfiguration.  The  awful  power  of  a 
propagated  vicious  tendency,  or  inherited  curse, 
in  the  case  of  certain  early  Greek  families,  lends 
inspiration  to  some  of  the  most  solemn  choruses 
in  the  Greek  drama ;  and  the  experience  of  every- 
day life  exhibits  the  ugly  issue  from  some  pa- 
ternal sin,  marring  the  features  or  giving  rotten- 
ness to  the  bones  of  their  unfortunate  progeny. 
A  habitual  realisation  of  this  fearful  power  of  sin 
and  misery  to  propagate  themselves  through 
long  generations  might  prevent  many  an  act  of 
reckless  folly,  or  habit  of  degrading  vice,  even 
with  reference  to  the  present  life  ;  but  if,  with  the 
additional  horrors  of  a  creeping  or  a  slimy  meta- 
morphosis, the  consequences  of  to-day's  sin  are 
believed  to  extend  over  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  ages,  not  in  the  person  of  his  progeny,  but  in 
the    very   transmuted    blood    and    bone    of    the 


150   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

offender,  the  moral  restraint  arising  from  such  a 
faith  cannot  be  inconsiderable  ;  nay,  rather,  will 
act  precisely  as  the  hope  of  Heaven  and  the  fear 
of  hell  act  upon  the  minds  of  professing  Christians. 
No  man  would  willingly  cherish  the  idea  of  be- 
coming a  pig,  or  an  ass,  or  a  snake,  or  a  crocodile, 
or  a  newt,  or  a  toad,  or  a  spider,  or  a  goose,  in  a 
future  state  ;  but  the  fear  of  such  an  embruted  re- 
appearance of  self,  stands  constantly  in  the  eye  of 
the  pious  devotee  of  Brahma  or  Buddha,  and 
works  accordingly. 

The  consummation  of  metempsychosis,  when  it 
has  run  through  its  complete  series  of  the  most 
favourable  changes,  is  NiRVANA,  or  eternal  beati- 
tude in  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite.  To  the  contem- 
plative Hindoo  mind  the  miseries  of  Hfe  present 
themselves  in  the  similitude  of  a  continual  tossing 
on  a  very  stormy  sea  ;  and  the  contrary  of  this, 
which  is  the  supreme  object  of  desire,  is  a  quiet 
and  breezeless  haven  of  eternal  repose.  The  same 
conception  of  a  state  of  perfect  bliss  after  death 
appears  in  the  Christian  analogue  of  an  eternal 
Sabbath — a  Sabbath  of  rest  which,  literally  taken, 
would  indeed  be  an  extremely  stupid  state,  even 
for  the  most  lazy  saints  ;  but  which,  to  active  and 
energetic   natures,  such   as  belong   to  most  well- 


Buddhism.  151 

constituted  Englishmen,  would  be  a  state  of  intol- 
erable stagnation  and  uninterrupted  fret.  The 
Christian  Sabbath  of  rest,  accordingly,  is  to  be 
understood  relatively ;  it  represents  a  state  in 
which  the  human  being  shall  be  freed  from  a  suc- 
cession of  sorrowful  struggles,  by  which  his  higher 
nature  on  earth  is  oppressed  and  strangled  ;  so 
also  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhists.  It  is  merely 
the  stoical  indifference,  the  philosophical  freedom 
from  vain  cares  and  silly  joys,  the  unclouded  seren- 
ity of  a  soul  living  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
constitution  of  things ;  this  worked  up  to  its 
ripe  consummation  in  a  future  state,  and  ex- 
pressed with  all  the  exaggeration  belonging  to 
the  full  swing  of  Oriental  imagination,  and  the 
curious  subtlety  of  Hindoo  metaphysics.  It  is,  in 
fact,  our  eternal  life,  and  nothing  else,  as  the 
following  Gathas,  or  memorial  verses,  distinctly 
declare  : — 

*'  '  There  is  one  bom  now  amongst  men 

Who  has  practised  the  rules  of  piety  for  ages, 

The  Prince  Royal,  son  of  Suddhodana  Raja, 

Who  has  resigned  the  royal  dignity  and  become  a  recluse  ; 

He,  desiring  to  open  the  gates  of  everlasting  life^ 

Is  now  proceeding  towards  the  Bodhi  Tree. 

If  you  are  able  to  do  so,  and  equal  to  the  task, 

Repair  straightway  and  see  him  there  beneath  the  tree, 

For  now  he  is  about  to  cross  over  to  the  other  side 


152    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

And  desires  above  all  things  to  save  others  with  himself; 
Bodhisatwa,  himself  enlightened, 
Desires  also  to  enlighten  others.'  " 

And  again  : — 

*'  '  Oh  !  Brahma  Devaraja,  attend  carefully  ! 

/  am  ivilling  now  to  open  the  gate  of  i/nmortality. 

If  any  will  listen,  let  them  come  gladly  ; 

Let  them  hearken  to  me  as  I  declare  the  tidings  of  this  Law.'  " 

And  this  other  : — 

*'  *  I  now  desire  to  turn  the  wheel  of  the  excellent  law ; 
For  this  purpose  am  I  going  to  that  city  of  Benares, 
To  give  light  to  those  enshrouded  in  darkjiess^ 
And  to  open  the  gate  of  Itumortality  to  men. 

And  yet  again  : — 


"  Then  they  addressed  Buddha  as  follows—*  Venerable  Gotama  ! 
your  body  is  of  a  beautiful  appearance,  your  face  and  your  eyes 
rovmd  and  fresh,  and  all  your  senses  in  perfect  accord  ;  you  must 
indeed  have  found  the  elixir  of  ijfimortality,  and  the  ivay  of  life.'' 

*'  Then  the  world-honomed  one  replied,  '  Ye  Rishis  !  mock  not 
Tathagata  by  calling  him  "  the  venerable  Gotama."  Ye  are  in- 
deed in  the  way  of  death.,  and  shall  reap  sorrow  and  disappoint- 
ment by  continuing  therein  ;  but  I  have  found  the' way  of  Immor- 
tality, and  am  now  abidi7tg  in  it.  I  am  able  to  instruct  you 
therein,  if  you  will  but  attend  and  consider  my  words,  if  you  will 
but  walk  according  to  my  directions ;  if  a  7nan  or  zuo??ian  will 
leave  the  world^  and  follow  me^  desiriftg  to  fitid  that  highest  con- 
dition of  a  true  Brahmana,  to  reach  the  fountain-head  of  such  a 
condition,  then  such  an  one  shall  surely  find  it,  and  arrive  at  the 
desired  goal ;  his  faculties  perfected,  he  shall  cut  himself  off  from 


J  }> 


Buddhism.  153 

further  birth  and  death ;  and  well-founded  in  his  religious  life 
he  shall  hereafter  receive  no  other  form  of  temporary  existence 
{dhava).  This  is  what  ye  should  meditate  on.'*  And  so  the  Gatha 
says — 

**  *  Those  five  Rishis  mockingly  spoke  of  Buddha  as  Gotama, 
The  world-honoured  one  in  pity  taught  them,  saying, 
*'  Let  not  your  thoughts  be  so  proud  and  high ; 
Let  go  that  pride  of  self,  and  obey  and  reverence  me. 
There  is  no  pride  of  self  in  me,  but  perfect  self-composure  ; 
I  desire  to  change  in  you  the  ground  of  your  destiny, 
I,  who  have  become  Buddha,  honoured  by  the  world, 
For  the  sake  of  all  living  things,  I  would  bring  this  good."  '  " 

We  have  given  these  passages  at  length  that 
the  reader  may  perceive  how  far  from  true  their 
assertion  is  who  tell  us  that  the  Buddhist  finds  his 
highest  bliss  in  the  prospect  of  ANNIHILATION. 
People  ought  to  have  thought  ten  times  before 
they  allowed  themselves  to  father  on  the  founder 
of  a  great  popular  religion  any  such  absurdity. 
Had  Buddha  really,  like  the  ancient  Hebrews, 
meant  to  ignore  a  future  life  in  the  enunciation  of 
his  law,  he  would  simply  have  said  nothing  about 
it  ;  but  he  never  would  have  come  forward,  in- 
ducing men  to  become  his  disciples  by  proclaim- 


•'  O  sin-laden  creatures^  and  miserable  mortals,  attend  carefully y 
/,  Buddha,  am  now  revealed  ready  to  open  the  gates  of  Annihi- 
lation to  all  fiesh  /  " 
7* 


154    The  Nattu'al  History  of  Atheism, 

What  he  taught  was  the  annihilation  of  our 
wretched  Hmited  existence  here,  Hke  the  existence 
of  a  poor  prisoned  eagle  in  a  small  cage,  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  a  participation  in  the  un- 
hampered life  of  beatified  spirits,  knowing  not  the 
bonds  of  flesh  and  blood,  nor  the  fretful  distrac- 
tions of  petty  terrestrial  relations.  In  interpreting 
the  Nirvana  as  every  other  dogma  of  oriental 
theology,  we  must  put  our  sober  occidental-  imagi- 
nation into  training,  and  bear  in  mind  constantly 
that  the  whole  phraseology  in  which  their  dogmas 
are  expressed  is  systematic  exaggeration  and  para- 
dox. Perfectly  true,  no  doubt  it  is,  that  when 
Buddha,  in  a  state  of  transcendental  ecstasy,  talks 
of  the  ''  absence  of  all  relationship,  the  destruction 
of  personality,  the  non-consciousness  of  an  Ego^ 
and  a  condition  of  mind  letting  go  all  thoughts  of 
what  exists,  and  what  does  not  exist,"  "^ — such  a 
description  of  Nirvana,  when  analysed  by  a  sober- 
minded  European  metaphysician,  seems  to  mean 
absolute  blankness  and  vacuity,  or  simple  annihila- 
tion ;  but  what  we  have  to  do  with,  in  determin- 
ing the  doctrines  of  the  Buddhist  faith,  as  practi- 
cally received  and  cherished  by  the  millions  of 
Asiatic  souls,  is  not  the  analysis  of  metaphysical 

*  Beal,  pp.  176,  237,  172,  246,  284, 


Buddhism.  155 

exaggerations,  but  the  popular  impression  made 
by  a  popular  similitude  ;  for  Nirvana,  like  some 
of  our  Christian  doctrines,  though  now  presented 
to  us  as  a  crystallised  dogma,  was  originally  only 
a  simile,  such  as  could  most  strikingly  impress  the 
exemption  of  a  state  of  celestial  bliss  from  the 
common  woes  of  terrestrial  humanity.  And  as  far 
as  the  practical  working  of  Buddhism  is  concerned, 
and  its  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  great  believing 
masses,  we  must  never  forget  that  perfect  Nirvana 
is  a  potency  of  beatitude  altogether  exceptional, 
peculiar  to  the  Buddhas,  and  the  more  saintly  of 
their  devotees,  and  could  no  more  lie  within  the 
calculation  of  an  ordinary  worshipper,  than  any 
common  pious  Roman  Catholic  can  look  for  a 
recognised  place  in  the  Calendar  along  with  St. 
Francis  of  AssisI,  or  a  place  in  Heaven  on  the 
right  hand  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  who  was  indeed 
once  only  a  devout  mother  in  Israel,  but  is  now 
worshipped  by  more  than  one-half  of  Christen- 
dom as  the  Queen  of  Heaven  and  the  Mother  of 
God. 

So  far  we  have  attempted  to  draw  in  rapid  sketch 
the  main  lines  of  the  Buddhistic  piety  as  professed 
and  practised  by  the  great  Buddha  himself.  We 
now  proceed  to  what  for  our  present  purpose  is  a 


156    The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism, 

much  more  important  question  ;  but  a  question 
which  happily  requires  very  few  words  for  its  defin- 
ite answer.  What  is  Buddhism  in  the  faith  of 
those  who  now  profess  the  rehgion — the  milhons 
of  pious  orthodox  devotees  in  Ceylon,  China, 
Thibet,  Burmah,  and  elsewhere  ?  The  question 
we  have  to  answer  now  is  not  what  Buddha  was, 
according  to  the  best  historical  results  which  a 
careful  analysis  of  the  traditions  yields,  but  under 
what  conception  is  he  actually  worshipped ;  for  it 
is  from  this  conception  alone  that  we  are  entitled 
to  draw  an  answer  to  our  inquiry.  Do  the  Bud- 
dhists as  a  sect  profess  atheism  ?  To  reach  the 
Buddhist  point  of  view  in  reference  to  this  matter, 
we  must  have  recourse  again  to  the  great  doctrine 
of  transmigration — or  rather,  that  particular  form 
of  it  which  we  are  accustomed  to  express  in  the- 
ological language  by  the  term  INCARNATION.  We 
stated  before  that,  though  by  us  looked  on  as  a 
mere  man,  to  the  Hindoo  conception  Buddha  is  a 
God-man — a  Messiah — and  therefore  justly  wor- 
shipped, not  with  merely  heroic  honours,  such  as 
the  Greeks  paid  to  Theseus  and  Hercules,  or  the 
Romans  to  Romulus.  No  Roman  ever  conceived 
of  Romulus  as  existing  before  his  birth  on  the 
Quirinal  Hill;  but  the  oriental  Buddha  appeared' 


Buddhism,  157 

on  earth,  as  the  Messiah  of  a  perfect  law,  only  after 
aeons  of  supermundane  existence  spent  with  Devas, 
and  other  divine  personages,  in  one  of  the  Hindoo 
heavens.  Nor  is  Buddha  the  only  being  of  his 
transcendental  kind  that  has  been  sent,  or  will  be 
sent,  into  this  lower  world.  There  are  many 
Buddhas  :  in  the  infinity  of  ages,  innumerable; 
and  the  orthodox  Ceylonese  belief  with  regard  to 
Buddhas  may  be  stated  formally  thus  : — In  order 
to  redeem  mankind  from  the  slavery  of  sense,  and 
the  misery  of  sin,  from  time  to  time  a  perfect 
Being  in  the  form  of  a  man  is  sent  into  the  world 
to  serve  as  an  example  and  guide  to  all  who  are 
striving  to  lessen  the  evils  of  existence,  and  possi- 
bly, in  the  long  end,  to  attain  supreme  beatitude. 
These  are  called  Buddhas  :  they  are  thoroughly 
enlightened  in  reference  to  all  matters  of  Divine 
law  ;  and  in  consideration  of  this,  deserve  supreme 
honour  and  reverence  from  men.  They  derive 
their  inspiration  from  themselves  ;  their  insight  in 
all  spiritual  matters  is  intuitive,  and  their  utterance 
oracular.  Of  these  Buddhas,  for  the  present  kalpa, 
or  age  of  the  world,  Gotama  Buddha,  or  Sakya 
Muni,  is  the  supreme  ;  and  if  there  be  any  Being 
in  heaven  or  earth  before  whom  all  human  beings 
ought  to  bow  down  with  unreserved  submission, 


158    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

as  at  once  the  true*  expounder  of  the  Divine  law, 
and  its  radiant  manifestation,  it  is  Gotama  Buddha. 
Absolutely  certain,  indeed,  it  cannot  be  said  to  be 
that  this  great  religious  reformer  formally  institu- 
ted the  worship  of  himself:  but  there  is  no  record 
of  his  having  set  before  his  disciples  any  higher 
object  of  adoration  ;  and  it  is  in  every  view,  ac- 
cording to  Buddhist  theology,  to  be  regarded  as 
the  highest  possible  satisfaction  to  the  religious  in- 
stincts  of  human   nature,   that   the   figure   of  the 
supreme   Buddha  sits   enthroned   as   the  supreme 
object  of  worship  in  all  Buddhistic  temples.     Ac- 
cording to  this  doctrine,  the  religion  of  the  Buddh- 
ists cannot  in  any  sense  be  charged  with  the  ab- 
surdities of  atheism.     The  peculiarity  of  their  piety 
consists  simply  in  the  concentration  of  the  feeling 
of  reverence  on  the  transcendental  personality  of  a 
Divine  proclaimer  of  the  eternal  moral  law  ;   God, 
as  the  creator  and  director  of  the  physical  universe, 
being  left  entirely  out  of  view.     And,  though  this 
system    is    undoubtedly  both    narrow  and   inade- 
quate, it  has   at  least  the  merit   of  directing  the 
faculty  of  reverence  to  an  object  at  once  the  most 
worthy  and  the  most  practical ;  and,  in  this  view, 
there  can   be  little   doubt  that   Plato,  who  found 
cause  to  protest  so  strongly  against  the  immoral- 


Buddhism,  159 

ity  of  the  Homeric  gods,  as  of  most  evil  example 
to  their  mortal  worshippers,  would  have  allowed 
Buddha  to  pass  without  censure,  perhaps  even  with 
a  kindly  nod  of  approbation.  Neither  can  the 
Buddhists  justly  be  charged  with  the  humiliation 
which  arises  from  the  deification  of  mortal  men, 
such  as  the  Romans  practised  when  they  placed 
Caesar  and  Augustus  amongst  the  gods.  Not  only 
was  Buddha  an  eminently  moral  man,  and  there- 
fore more  worthy  of  worship  than  the  immoral 
gods  of  the  Greeks  ;  but  he  was,  as  we  have  said 
repeatedly,  a  god  and  above  all  gods,  as  the  Gatha 
has  it — 

**  '  Above,  below,  and  through  the  Earth, 
Amongst  all  creatures  that  have  life, 
Whether  gods  or  men,  Buddha  is  chief.'  "  * 

So  much  for  the  practical  atheism  of  which  the 
Buddhists  have  been  generally  accused.  The  wor- 
shippers of  a  transcendental  Messiah,  the  promul- 
gator of  the  eternal  law  of  moral  rectitude,  never 
can  be  classed  with  the  deniers  of  God  ;  they  only 
refuse  to  complicate  practical  religion  with  the 
metaphysical  question  as  to  the  origin  of  the  uni- 

*  Beal,  p.  365  ;  and  at  p.  71  he  is  represented  as  omniscient,  and 
seeing  through  all  things  in  a  moment. 


i6o    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

verse ;  from  which,  by  the  way,  the  Greeks  also 
abstained,  and  were  never  accused  of  anything  but 
an  anthropomorphic  superstition.  But  not  even  in 
speculation  is  it  necessary  for  a  Buddhist  to  deny 
absolutely  the  doctrine  of  an  IsJnvara,  or  supreme 
Creator.  Whatever  difficulties  Buddha  himself 
might  have  had  on  this  subject,  and  however 
averse  he  was  to  mix  up  theological  speculations 
with  the  obligations  of  the  moral  law,  the  follow- 
ing exceedingly  curious  statement  from  a  speech 
made  by  a  Buddhist  priest,  in  the  celebrated  pub- 
lic debate  on  Buddhism  held  at  Pantura,  in  Ceylon, 
will  amply  demonstrate  that  his  priests  do  not  con- 
sider themselves  as  floating  about  amid  the  reason- 
less vacuities  of  a  blind  atheism  ; — * 

"  He  (the  priest)  did  not  deny  a  Creator,  but  admitted  that  he 
owned  his  existence  to  one  ;  but  why  should  he  be  allowed  to  be- 
come the  enemy  of  the  Creator?  which  he  was  now.  If  any  one 
deserved  God's  conversion  it  was  he.  The  Christian  theory  of  a 
Creator  was  false,  and  he  will  presently  explain  to  them  who  the 
true  Creator  was  on  whom  he  believed,  and  what  he  says  will  be 
borne  out  even  by  the  Scripture  account  of  the  creation.  He  must 
say  that  this  part  of  the  Bible  was  most  prudently  written  by  one 
who  was  in.  no  way  a  fool.  It  was  said  there  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters ;  and  why  should  this  fact 
have  been  mentioned,  if  not  to  show  that  the  acting  of  this  Spirit 
on  the  water  was  the  cause  of  all  animal  and  vegetable  life.     This 

*  A  full  account  of  the  Buddhist  controversy,  held  at  Pantura, 
August,  1873.      Ceylon  Times  Office,  Colombo,  1873. 


Buddhism,  i6i 

was  certainly  so.  The  action  of  air  on  water  always  produced 
animal  life ;  if  a  cocoanut,  which  usually  remains  on  the  tree  with- 
out rotting  for  nine  or  ten  months,  be  pierced  through,  and  air 
be  allowed  to  enter  into  it,  the  water  inside  was  sure  to  breed 
worms ;  and  so  long  as  air  could  be  excluded  from  water,  there  was 
no  generation  of  any  insect.  Likewise  in  this  instance,  *  the  Spirit 
of  God,'  as  it  was  called,  acted  upon  the  face  of  the  waters,  and  it 
produced  animal  life.  The  origin  of  all  species  was  then,  even 
according  to  the  Bible,  air,  with  which  was  associated  heat  and 
water.  These  three,  heat,  air,  and  water,  by  whatever  name 
known — whether  as  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Iswara,  or  God,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost — were  the  identical  and  only  origin  of  species. 
These  were  their  only  Creator,  and  him  he  would  worship ;  and  as 
neither  air,  nor  water,  nor  heat  could  produce  any  beings  without 
the  aid  of  the  other,  but  were  co-existent  and  so  closely  associated 
with  each  other  that  they  could  not  be  said  to  have  separate  exist- 
ences, the  Christians  were  justified  in  saying  that  though  there  are 
three  beings,  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  yet  they  were  not 
three  Gods,  but  one  God.  These,  however,  were  not  beings,  but 
states." 


This  is  Pantheism — the  Pantheism  of  Heraclitus, 
Anaximenes,  and  some  of  the  other  pre-Socratic 
thinkers  of  Asiatic  Greece  ;  certainly  not  Atheism. 

The  above  outlines,  given  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  words  of  the  original  documents,  will,  it  is 
hoped,  enable  the  intelligent  reader,  brought  up 
in  a  European  atmosphere,  to  understand  some- 
thing of  the  proper  attitude  and  aspect  of  Buddh- 
ism, as  one  of  the  most  notable  phenomena  in  the 
moral  history  of  mankind.  It  remains  only, 
for    the   sake   of  greater   clearness    and  decision, 


1 62    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

that  we  give  a  short  summation  of  the  results  of 
our  inquiry  as  to  the  worth  and  worthlessness 
of  this  phenomenon.  And  first  of  its  worthless- 
ness. 

Buddhism,  after  making  every  allowance  for  its 
many  points  of  practical  excellence,  and  of  happy 
adaptation  to  the  genius  of  the  East,  can  in  no 
wise  be  looked  upon  as  anything  but  an  abnormal 
manifestation  of  the  religious  hfe  of  man,  being, 
as  it  is,  built  up  on  the  foundation  of  the  following 
five  essentially  false  propositions  : — 

(i.)  The  proposition  that  human  existence  on 
this  earth  is  an  evil.  This  proposition  could  only 
be  true  if  God  were  a  devil,  and  if  the  general 
arrangements  of  the  system  of  life  in  the  universe 
were  such  as  showed  a  manifest  purpose  to  produce, 
and  did  actually  produce,  a  preponderance  of  mis- 
ery ;  but  this  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  the  fact. 
If  there  are  headaches  in  the  world,  every  head  is 
not  always  aching  ;  if  there  are  toothaches,  every 
tooth  in  every  head  is  not  always  longing  to  offer 
itself  to  the  expert  wrench  of  the  dentist  ;  if  there 
are  rainy  seasons  all  over  the  world,  and  whole 
months  of  rain  in  Skye,  rain  is  not  the  constant 
product  of  the  atmosphere,  as  the  clouds  do  not 
always  blind  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  even 


Buddhism,  163 

in  Skye  ;  if  lovers  sometimes  shoot  themselves  from 
passion,  and  husbands  sometimes  murder  their 
wives  from  satiety,  all  men  are  not  always  lovers, 
all  lovers  do  not  shoot  themselves,  and  all  husbands 
do  not  murder  their  wives,  or  even  weary  of  their 
society.  Neither  Romeo  and  Juliet,  nor  Richard 
III.,  nor  Hamlet,  nor  Othello,  nor  the  Pelopidan 
and  Labdacidan  enormities  of  the  Greek  drama, 
are  tragedies  that  occur  every  day  ;  rather  it  is 
their  extreme  rarity  that  'fits  them  specially  for 
popular  excitement  and  stage  effect.  Larks  are 
shot  sometimes  by  idle  boys,  or  comprehensive 
providers  of  dainty  suppers  for  ancient  Roman 
emperors  or  modern  French  gourmands  :  but  the 
shooting  is  a  moment  of  misery  to  the  lark,  while 
its  singing  has  been  continued  through  long  sum- 
mers of  bright  breezy  sunshine.  Existence,  taken 
as  a  whole,  is  as  preferable  to  non-existence  as 
light  is  to  darkness,  or  a  glass  of  cool  water  or 
warm  port  wine  to  an  empty  tumbler.  To  say 
that  existence  is  an  evil,  is  to  spit  in  the  sun's 
face,  because  some  persons  have  cataract ;  or 
to  say  that  there  is  no  sun,  because  you  happen 
to  live  under  the  shadow  of  an  eclipse.  Exist- 
ence is  not  a  bane,  but  a  blessing  ;  not  a  sor- 
row, but  a  joy  ;    and   he  Hves   most  wisely  and 


164    The  Nat2i7'al  History  of  Atheism, 

most  religiously  who  knows  how  to  enjoy  it, 
according  to  its  nature,  most  intensely  and  most 
largely. 

(2.)  The  second  fundamental  error  of  Buddha 
consists  in  his  placing  human  excellence  in  medi- 
tation rather  than  in  action.  The  hero  with  him  is 
always  a  saint,  never  a  king.  This  is  a  subordi- 
nation contrary  to  the  great  fact  of  the  universe, 
and  in  no  wise  to  be  accepted.  The  world  is  a 
work  ;  life  is  a  work  ;  growth  is  a  work ;  all  things 
are  full  of  labour,  and  attain  to  their  perfection  only 
by  labour.  True  it  is,  no  doubt,  in  the  order  of 
abstract  relationship,  thought  is  the  father  of  speech, 
and  speech  is  the  harbinger  of  deed ;  but  this  ab- 
stract fatherhood  of  thought  is  a  thing  in  itself 
absolutely  without  reality  ;  the  mere  thought  of  an 
orange,  though  entertained  and  cherished  in  the 
most  capacious  of  fertile  brains  for  infinite  ages, 
will  never  produce  an  orange  :  abstract  thought  is 
essentially  unproductive.  Hence  it  is  that  mere 
thinking  in  the  most  highly  gifted  of  human  beings 
never  produced  anything,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
using  of  given  materials,  according  to  the  dictation 
of  thought,  may  be  called  production  ;  but  God  is 
essentially  productive,  or  what  we  call  creative, 
and  with  him  any  manifestation  of  living  energy  is 


Buddhism,  165 

necessarily  both  thought  and  deed.*  We  cannot, 
therefore,  in  aspiring  to  a  divine  Hfe,  overlook  the 
dignity  of  the  deed,  to  make  an  idol  of  thought. 
A  German  professor  may  do  this,  with  a  portentous 
ambition,  amid  fumes  of  tobacco  and  stale  beer, 
constructing  the  universe  by  the  stages  of  a  logical 
process ;  but  it  is  all  vanity  :  a  living  world  pro- 
ceeds only  from  a  living  God  ;  and  though  a  man 
may  found  a  metaphysical  system,  he  never  can 
preach  an  effective  practical  gospel  on  such  a  basis. 
Rehgious  meditation,  when  set  up  as  an  end,  not 
as  an  exercise  towards  an  end,  can  issue  only  with 
all  the  more  highly  gifted  minds  in  transcendental 
reverie,  but  with  the  great  majority  in  devout  tor- 
por and  pious  monotony. 

(3.)  In  the  third  place,  coming  out  from  his  long 
session  under  the  Buddhi  tree  of  devout  medita- 
tion, Buddha,  as  might  have  been  expected  from 
such  a  beginning,  falls  plump  into  the  vulgarest  of 
all  ethical  heresies,  viz.,  that  the  proper  cure  for  the 
abuse  of  our  passions  and  appetites  is  not  regula- 
tion, but  total  abstinence  from  the  exciting  cause, 
and  violent  extirpation  of  the  appetite.  Here  our 
oriental   saint   goes   directly  to  war  with  Nature, 

*  This  is  what  Goethe  meant  when  he  put   into  the  mouth  of 
Faust,  in  a  well-known  passage,  '*  Im  anfang  war  die  that." 


1 66   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

and  has  just  as  much  chance  of  succeeding  as  in 
attempting  to  Hve  without  his  dinner,  or  making  a 
railway  to », the  sun.  Nevertheless,  this  device  of 
total  abstinence  is  a  very  old  blunder,  and  fre- 
quently practised,  from  the  apparent  directness  and 
certainty  of  the  remedy.  Cut  off  the  supply  at  the 
fountain-head,  and  the  waters  will  not  overflow  in 
the  valley.  Certainly.  But  if  all  the  supply  of  all 
the  fountain-heads  be  imperiously  cut  off,  what 
becomes  of  your  valleys  then,  and  of  all  the  green 
vegetation  there  ?  '^  If  thy  right  eye  offejid  thee^ 
pltick  it  out ;  and  if  thy  right  hand  offend  thee, 
cut  it  off:  "  an  evangelic  text  this  of  the  highest 
value,  and  the  best  of  all  rules  for  a  special  case  ; 
a  case  in  which  extreme  diseases  cry  out  for  extreme 
remedies,  but  which  never  can  afford  rational 
ground  for  the  statement  of  a  general  rule.  Sane- 
minded  men  will  keep  their  right  eyes  and  their 
right  hands  as  long  as  they  possibly  can  where 
they  belong.  The  end  of  man  is  not  to  amputate 
and  to  cripple  his  functions,  but  to  put  them  forth 
lustily,  and  to  enjoy  himself  in  the  luxuriance  of 
their  energy.  Morality  with  all  its  excellence  has 
no  commission  to  usurp  the  place  of  enjoyment. 
God  delights  to  see  his  creatures  flap  their  wings 
in  the  free  expatiation  of  sweet  life.     The  rule  of 


Buddhism,  167 

right  Is  not  the  woodman's  axe  to  fell,  but  the 
gardener's  knife  to  prune  ;  it  is,  to  use  Plato's  well- 
known  simile,  neither  the  chariot  nor  the  steeds 
that  draw  the  chariot,  but,  only  the  coachman  that 
holds  the  rein  and  appHes  the  spur  or  presses  down 
the  drag,  as  the  case  may  require. 

(4.)  The  Buddhist,  and  indeed  the  Brahminists 
also,  to  a  certain  extent,  err  in  teaching  that  the 
natural  and  necessary  boundary  between  the  self- 
existent  and  all-derived  existence  can  be  overleapt 
by  any  amount  of  human  virtue,  however  fault- 
less. 

The  confusion  of  the  Divine  and  human  spheres 
of  existence  is  the  origin  of  much  that  appears  to  us 
so  strange  in  the  religious  fictions  of  the  Hindoos. 
For  the  purposes  of  fiction,  Southey,  in  his  **  Curse 
of  Kehama,"  might  use  it  wisely ;  but  to  sober 
thinking  it  remains  a  gigantic  monstrosity.  It 
seems  natural  to  pantheism  under  certain  conditions 
to  fall  into  this  error.  Spinoza  and  Giordano 
Bruno,  Timogine,  kept  quite  free  from  it.  Hebrew, 
Mahommedan,  and  Christian  dualism,  of  course 
steer  clear  of  any  such  portentous  imaginations. 
The  tendency  in  them  rather  is  to  depress  and 
discourage  the  creature  by  the  overwhelming  pre- 
sence of  an  omniscient  and  overpowering  Creator. 


1 68   The  Natural  Histo7y  of  Atheism, 

Hence  the  awful  gloom  and  weighty  seriousness 
not  unfrequently  associated  with  Christian  piety, 
especially  in  its  early  stages,  and  with  an  unkindly 
environment. 

(5.)  The  last  fundamental  error  of  the  Buddhists 
consists  in  the  imagination  that  the  human  mind, 
as  essentially  reasonable,  can  ever  be  satisfied  with- 
out the  faith  in  a  self-existent  plastic  Reason,  as 
the  living  root  out  of  which  this  wonderful  whole 
of  things,  which  we  call  the  world,  grows  ;  in  other 
words  that  the  human  mind  can  rest  contented  with 
the  conception  of  an  invariable  sequence  of  things 
without  a  reasonable  substantial  ground  of  all 
sequence. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  error  touches  only 
the  intellectual  side  of  Buddhism  as  a  philosophy, 
and  does  not  necessarily  vitiate  its  practical  effi- 
cacy as  a  rule  of  life.  At  the  same  time,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  man  is,  as  the  lawyers  say,  an 
umim  quid ;  that  he  has  a  head  as  well  as  heart ; 
and  that  indirectly  the  practical  efficiency  of  any 
religion  will  be  seriously  affiscted,  when  its  funda- 
mental principles  are  felt  to  be  at  war  with  the 
primary  instincts  of  human  thought.  So  long, 
indeed,  as  thought  is  suppressed,  and  education 
neglected,  such  a  religion  may  continue  to  satisfy 


Bicddhism,  169 

the  masses,  and  dominate  the  popular  sentiment 
without  serious  question  ;  but  the  moment  a  culti- 
vated reason  is  stirred  to  the  exercise  of  its  legiti- 
mate functions,  such  a  religion  droops.  The  no- 
bility of  its  moral  inspiration  is  forgotten  in  the 
absurdity  of  its  intellectual  assertions,  and  the 
blackness  of  its  intellectual  negations  ;  for  a  man 
will  not  envy  the  position  of  moral  saintship  in  a 
system,  where  to  be  an  orthodox  believer  implies 
that  he  is  intellectually  an  ass. 

In  the  view  of  these  serious  defects,  one  cannot 
but  feel  considerable  difficulty  in  understanding  how 
such  a  system  should  have  succeeded,  as  a  reform 
of  the  existing  Brahmanism  ;  inasmuch  as  its  pe- 
culiar doctrines  are  little  more  than  overstrained 
statements  and  paradoxical  exaggerations  of  what 
already  existed  in  Brahmanism,  less  the  altogether 
rational  recognition  of  a  creative  Mind.  Any 
person  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  open- 
ing chapters  of  the  Laws  of  Manu,  translated  by 
Sir  William  Jones,  cannot  fail  to  perceive  how 
much  more  rational  and  noble  the  theology  of  the 
Brahmans  is  than  the  soulless  talk  of  Buddha  about 
invariable  sequence,  and  unavoidable  effects  from 
unexplained  causes.  We  can  therefore  attribute 
the  extraordinary  moral  conquests  of  the  Buddhis- 


170   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

tic  doctrine,  not  so  much  to  its  own  intrinsic 
superiority  as  to  its  emphatic  practical  protest 
against  the  selfishness  of  sacerdotal  caste,  the 
Pharisaic  and  ceremonial  element,  with  the  extreme 
penances,  mortifications,  and  sacrificial  atone- 
ments* thereto  belonging,  as  also  fire-worship, 
and  other  forms  of  idolatrous  superstition,  all  of 
which  in  Buddha's  time  had  assumed  such  mon- 
strous proportions  as  to  rouse  the  moral  indigna- 
tion of  society,  pretty  much  in  the  same  way  that 
the  pubhc  market  of  indulgences  by  the  Roman 
popes  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  had 
prepared  the  popular  mind  for  the  anti-sacerdotal 
protests  of  Martin  Luther. 

In  reference  to  sacerdotal  penances  and  ascetic 
mortifications  of  the  flesh,  it  is  of  importance  to 
observe  that,  though  in  the  above  biographical 
sketch  the  characteristic  features  of  asceticism  and 
self-imposed  mendicancy  seems  sufficiently  pro- 
nounced, there  exists,  nevertheless,  a  broad  dis- 
tinction between  a  system  of  artificial  abstinence 
and  a  system  of  unnatural  self-torture  ;  and  in  op- 
posing himself  to  such  unnatural   practices  in  all 

*The  Chinese  book  contains  repeated  strong  protests  against 
the  shedding  of  blood  by  sacrificial  atonement.  See  particularly 
p.  159- 


Btiddhism.  171 

forms,  Sakya  Muni,  considering  his  precedents, 
and  the  atmosphere  which  he  breathed,  is  certain- 
ly entitled  to  a  very  considerable  amount  of  praise. 
Bitten  as  he  was  from  the  very  moment  of  his  con- 
version with  that  rage  of  plunging  into  the  con- 
trary, which  is  the  natural  impulse  of  all  sudden 
converts,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  he  went  per- 
sonally through  a  regular  course  of  that  curri- 
culum of  sacred  self  torture  which  was  lauded  by 
the  then  doctors  of  the  Brahmanic  church  ;  but 
herein,  as  our  modern  evangelical  devotees  in  the 
works  of  the  law,  he  found  no  rest  to  his  soul  ; 
and  hence  was  led,  in  the  process  of  devout 
meditation,  to  strike  out  that  more  moderate  form 
of  self-discipline,  which,  to  his  high-strained  im- 
agination, and  set  against  the  orthodox  cycle  of 
Hindoo  mortifications,  might  weU  commend  it- 
self as  the  true  via  media  between  carnal  enjoy- 
ment and  religious  castigation.  In  order  to  real- 
ise this  with  all  vividness,  we  shall  set  down  here 
a  curious  passage  which  recites  how,  in  the  outset 
of  his  religious  career,  the  Bodhi  satwa,  or  Buddhi 
designates,  in  the  solitudes  of  the  forest,  came 
upon  a  company  of   Rishis,*   who   were   practis- 

*  In  Williams's  Sanscrit  Dictionary  a  Rishi  is  defined  seer   and 
saint. 


172    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

ing  their  prescribed  austerities,  and  learnt  from 
them  the  various  phases  of  self-mortification,  as 
follows  : — 

"  '  Venerable  brother  !'  they  replied,  'you  may  ask  any  questions 
you  please  respecting  our  religious  discipline,  and  we,  as  far  as 
possible,  will  explain  everything  to  you  in  detail.  Amongst  us 
there  are  some  who  mortify  themselves  by  eating  nothing  except 
edible  herbs  (tsae),  or  spouting  shoots  of  plants  (t'he),  or  the 
tender  stems  of  the  Nyagrodha  tree,  or  of  the  Dukula  (?)  tree,  or 
of  the  Kanikala  tree  ;  whilst  others  eat  nothing  but  the  stems  of  one 
particular  tree  (ekadruma),  others  eat  the  excrements  of  the  ox, 
others  nothing  but  the  roots  of  certain  plants,  or  the  mashed  fibres 
of  different  shrubs;  again  there  are  others  who  take  just  water 
enough  to  preserve  life,  etc.  ;  some  clothe  themselves  with 
hempen  vesture  ;  others  with  the  fleece  of  the  black  sheep  ;  others 
with  grassy  robes;  others  with  the  cotton  of  the  wild  caterpillar; 
others  with  the  dragon-beard  plant  ;  others  with  deer-skins  ;  others 
■with  the  rags  of  corpses,  or  with  filthy  rags  ;  some  again  sleep  on 
boards,  some  on  chips,  some  on  tree-trunks,  some  on  pestle-ham- 
mers ;  some  again  dwell  in  cemeteries ;  others  in  holes ;  others 
under  the  open  heavens;  others  stand  in  water;  others  use  fire 
to  their  inconvenience ;  others  turn  always  to  the  sun  ;  others 
raise  both  arms  above  their  heads  and  keep  them  so  ;  others  sit  in 
one  fixed  posture  on  the  earth;  others  cleanse  not  their  bodies 
from  filth ;  others  have  their  hair  spirally-twisted ;  others  pull 
out  the  hair  of  their  heads ;  others  pull  out  the  hair  on  their  faces  ; 
thus  it  is  these  different  Rishis  practise  self-mortification,  whilst  in 
turn  they  give  themselves  to  profound  meditation  and  ardent 
prayers,  and  vows  to  be.  born  in  Heaven,  or  to  be  born  again 
amongst  men." 

In  Opposition  to  such  monstrous  distortions  and 
grim  caricatures  of  rational  self-control,  Buddha 
was  entitled  to  plant  himself  as  a  sort  of  monkish 


Buddhism,  173 

Aristotle,  placing  sanctity  in  the  mean  betwixt  two 
extremes  ;  and  this,  in  fact,  is  what  we  find  him 
doing  in  the  following  remarkable  passage  : — 


*<  '  Ye  Bhikshus  !  who  have  left  your  homes,  there  are  two  things 
ye  should  finally  and  forever  renounce — all  worldly  sources  of  pleas- 
tcre  and  bodily  gratification^  and  also  excessive  mortification  of 
body,  which  neither  te7td  to  self -profit  nor  the  profit  of  others  I ' 
And  so  the  Gatha  says — 

"  '  Reject  and  forsake  places  and  modes  of  excessive  penance  ; 
Check  and  entirely  control  sensuous  gratification ; 
If  a  man  is  able  to  follow  these  two  lines  of  conduct 
Immediately  he  will  attain  the  true  way  of  eternal  life.' 

*<  Then  the  Buddha  continued  his  address — *  Bhikshus  !  be  assured 
that  I  have  given  up  each  of  these  erroneous  methods,  and  this  is 
the  middle  path  to  which  I  have  attained;  thtis  am  I  enlightened^ 
thus  my  eyes  are  able  to  see  and  my  mind  to  know,  and  therefore  I 
have  gained  a  condition  of  rest  {santi),  and  am  in  possession  of 
complete  spiritual  life,  and  have  accomplished  the  acquirement  of 
perfect  intelligence,  and  am  now  a  true  Shaman,  and  have  reached 
Nirvana  and  ant  perfected.  If  then,  Bhikshus,  ye  wish  to  reach 
this  condition,  ye  must  also  use  this  middle  path  which  I  have  used, 
and yonr  eyes  shall  be  opened^  and  wisdom  shall  spring  tip  within^ 
a  fid  you  shall  enjoy  rest,  and  reach  Nirvana,  and  the  eight  paths 
of  holiness  (As'htanga  Marga),  viz.  — Samyak-drishti,  Samyak-sam- 
kalpa,  Samyagvak,  Samyagadjiva,  Samyak-karmanta,  Samyagvy- 
ayama,  Samyak-smriti,  Samyak-samadhi.  This,  Bhikshus  !  is  the 
middle  path,  which  having  attained  to,  my  eyes  are  opened,  and  1 
iiave  found  rest,  etc.  To  this,  therefore,  ye  ought  to  tend ;  as  the 
Gatha  says — 

"  '  Because  of  these  eight  paths  leading  aright, 

A  man  casts,  off  the  trammels  of  life,  death,  and  fear, 

Having  entirely  got  rid  of  all  the  eff"ects  of  Karma, 

Through  eternity  he  shall  no  more  receive  migratory  existence.'*  " 


174    ^^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

In  preaching  thus,  the  Hindoo  reformer  could 
not  but  appear  as  the  spiritual  friend  and  deliverer 
of  many  pious  souls,  who,  to  use  the  language  of 
the  apostles  of  Christianity,  had  for  ages  been 
groaning  under  a  yoke  which  neither  they  nor 
their  fathers  had  been  able  to  bear  ;  and  we  may 
with  perfect  truth  recognise  in  him  a  certain  spirit- 
ual brotherhood  with  the  great  Western  preacher 
who  taught  that  in  Christ  Jesus  there  is  neither 
circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  but  a  new  crea- 
ture. 

(2.)  But  the  principal  element  which  in  the  end 
secured  to  Buddha  such  a  remarkable  triumph 
over  the  established  religion  of  his  country,  be- 
yond all  doubt  was  the  extreme  innocency,  purity, 
benevolence,  and  disinterested  philanthropy  of 
himself  and  his  immediate  disciples.  It  was  the 
fervour  of  the  missionary  spirit  that  conquered  in 
the  case  of  Buddha,  as  it  has  so  often  done  in  the 
case  of  Christian  missionaries.  In  all  times  and 
in  all  places  love  is  the  key  to  the  human  heart, 
and  the  great  weapon  in  all  moral  battles  ;  in  all 
high-minded,  self-devoting  apostleship,  there  is  a 
contagion  which,  when  aptly  applied,  the  human 
heart  can  no  more  resist  than  gunpowder  can  dis- 
own the  spark  which  ignites  it.     The  admiration 


Buddhism,  i75 

produced  by  the  noble  and  altogether  unworldly 
self-renunciation  of  the  young  Sakyan  prince 
comes  out  in  several  passages  of  the  Chinese  book, 
and  notably  in  the  following  : — 

"  Then  another  Brahman  of  the  company,  having  observed  the 
grace  and  force  of  Bodhisatwa's  manner,  addressed  one  standing  by 
and  said,  '  Venerable  one  !  it  seems  to  me  that  this  is  no  other  than 
a  child  of  Heavenly  birth,  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  human 
heart,  who  now  by  means  of  this  expedient  desires  to  accomplish 
some  illustrious  purpose.  For  why?  we  find  that  in  the  world 
men  speak  thus— "  I  must  nourish  and  bring  up  my  sons  in  order 
that  when  they  grow  up  they  may  help  to  establish  and  benefit  my 
family  name,  in  buying  and  selling  and  getting  profit  for  me,  so  that 
when  I  am  old  I  may  be  able  to  devote  myself  to  religious  inquiries 
and  practices."  It  is  thus  men  generally  think  and  speak,  they 
have  a  refere^ice  in  all  they  do  to  their  own  advantage.  But  with 
this  one  it  is  not  so,  he  seeks  the  good  of  others  and  not  his  own.,  he 
provides  nothing  for  hints  elf. '^  " 

And  again  : — 

«'  Then  one  of  the  Manava  youths,  a  disciple  of  Alara,  broke  out 
into  the  following  eulogy,  his  hands  clasped  together  in  token  of 
reverence,  as  he  addressed  Bodhisatwa,  '  Oh  !  rarely  seen  is  such 
wisdom  as  thine  ;  in  olden  times  indeed  maity  kings,  satiated  with 
worldly  pleasures,  have  forsaken  their  homes,  and  sought  for  reli- 
gious perfection  in  the  solitudes  ;  but  thou  !  so  young  and  in  the  vigor 
of  your  age,  to  give  up  the  certain  enjoyment  of  Royalty,  and  to  pre- 
fer the  harshness  of  a  life  in  the  desert— the  companion  of  wild 
beasts,  and  the  unfettered  birds  !  wonderful  indeed  is  this  I '  And 
now,  Alara,  addressing  Bodhisatwa,  said,  '  Venerable  Sir  !  seeking 
what  way  and  in  pursuit  of  what  object,  have  you  bent  your  steps 
hither  ? '" 


176    The  Natitral  History  of  Atheism. 

All  this,  and  the  general  tone  and  scope  of  Bud- 
dha's teaching,  stripped  of  the  grotesque  bedizen- 
ment  in  Avhich  it  is  presented,  plainly  shows  that 
Buddhism  triumphed,  just  as  Christianity  tri- 
umphed, fundamentally  because  in  all  moral  bat- 
tles, love  and  humanity,  with  their  innate  expan- 
siveness,  will  always  triumph  over  the  narrow- 
ness of  self-contained  pride  and  unsocial  ag- 
grandisement. If  there  be  in  the  realm  of  physi- 
cal forces  a  natural  selection,  which,  as  Darwin 
teaches,  necessarily  leads  the  stronger  and  more 
healthy  type  to  overwhelm  the  feeble  and  the  dis- 
eased, not  less  certainly  is  there  in  the  moral  world 
a  law  of  moral  selection,  which  forces  lies  to  re- 
treat before  truth,  as  night  yields  to  the  day,  and 
Malignity  to  grind  her  teeth  and  to  spit  her  venom 
before  Benignity  in  vain.* 

How  far  the  Buddhistic  religion,  notwithstand- 
ing the  high  and  evangelical  tone  of  its  morality, 
may  have  proved  a  great  practical  failure,  I  do  not 
feel  in  a  condition  absolutely  to  declare.  Every 
religion    that   starts  with   a   high    and    unworldly 

*  Even  a  zealous  Christian  missionary  allows  that  Buddhism  in 
the  East  has  proved  '*  more  of  a  blessing  than  a  curse,"  and  is  to 
be  regarded  historically  as  a  notable  engine  of  social  elevation. 
Three  lectures  on  Buddhism  by  the  Rev.  Ernest  T.  EiteL  London, 
1871,  p.  10. 


Buddhism,  177 

ideal,  must  in  one  sense  prove  a  failure  as  soon  as 
it  becomes  a  fashion  and  tradition  to  profess  it. 
Christianity,  in  this  sense,  has  proved  a  tremen- 
dous failure  ;  and  Buddhism,  of  course,  could 
much  less  escape  a  similar  doom,  in  proportion  as 
it  was  less  human  in  its  sympathies,  and  more 
removed  from  common  life  in  its  practices.  For 
Buddhism  must  fail,  not  merely  like  Christianity 
in  so  many  places,  by  outstriding  the  moral 
ambition  and  transcending  the  moral  capacity  of 
its  professors,  but  by  insanely  attempting  to  over- 
ride the  common  instincts  of  humanity,  and  dis- 
own the  primary  conditions  on  which  human 
creatures  are  created.  The  necessary  result  of 
such  an  overstrained  system  is  a- double  morality, 
a  morality  of  artificial  sanctitude  combined  with 
natural  stupidity,  and  sometimes  systematic  hy- 
pocrisy in  the  priests  and  a  morality  of  worldly 
accommodation,  external  observances,  and  cus- 
tomary indulgences  in  the  people,  combined  with 
the  silly  ceremonial  or  barren  formalism  of  a 
religion  which  is  not  a  reasonable  service.  It 
might  have  been  expected,  indeed,  that  Buddha, 
in  protesting  against  the  exclusiveness  of  caste, 
and,  like  Christ,  preaching  the  gospel  to  the 
poor,  might  have  prevailed  to  deliver  his  followers 


178    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

from  the  burden  of  supporting  a  number  of  idle 
persons  performing  a  routine  of  silly  mummeries, 
called  priests  ;  but  religious  teachers  must  exist  ; 
and,  whether  formally  claiming  the  privileges  of 
caste  or  not,  they  will  not  fail  to  organize  them- 
selves into  a  strongly  knit  association  of  persons 
exercising  sacerdotal  powers,  so  long  as  an  artifi- 
cial ideal  of  sanctity  is  maintained,  and  the  people 
are  not  sufficiently  instructed  to  understand  that 
true  religion  is  not  a  separate  business  admin- 
istered by  a  separate  profession,  but  a  common 
principle  of  action  inspiring  all  breasts,  and  giving 
elevation  to  all  forms  of  social  energy. 

I  subjoin  two  passages  from  recent  writers, 
exhibiting  what,  no  doubt,  is  the  dark  side  of 
practical  Buddhism  (for  the  light  side  we  cannot 
expect  to  be  very  patent  to  English  residents  and 
foreign  missionaries),  but  which  still,  I  fear,  must 
be  accepted  as  a  true  picture,  so  far  as  it  goes  : — 

"It  is  specifically  urged  against  the  doctrines  of  Fo,  by  the  Con- 
fucians, that  they  unfit  men  for  the  business  and  duties  of  life,  by 
fixing  their  speculations  so  entirely  on  another  state  of  existence  as 
to  lead  some  fanatics  to  hang  or  drown  themselves  in  order  to  antici- 
pate futurity  ;  nay,  two  persons  have  been  known  to  commit  suicide 
together  with  the  view  of  becoming  man  and  wife  in  the  next 
world.  The  priests  are  sometimes  accused  of  employing  their 
superstitious  arts  in  seducing  women  ;  societies  of  women,  at  least, 
called  Ny-Koo,   a  species  of  nun  or  female  devotees,  are  encouraged 


Btiddhism,  179 

by  them.  The  tricks  occasionally  made  use  of  by  the  priests, 
resemble  the  practices  of  the  fakirs  of  India.  Le  Comte  tells  a  story 
of  a  bonze,  who  went  about  in  a  vessel  stuck  full  of  nails  (some- 
thing like  that  in  which  the  Carthaginians  are  said  to  have  shut  up 
■Regulus),  and  pretending  that  it  was  a  merit  to  relieve  him  from 
his  pain,  be  sold  these  nails  to  the  devout  at  so  much  per  head. 

*'  Their  notion  of  abstraction,  or  quietism,  seems  to  aim  at  get- 
ting rid  of  all  passions,  even  of  thought  itself,  and  ceasing  to  be 
urged  by  any  human  desires:  a  species  of  mental  annihilation. 
Certainly,  to  judge  of  its  effects  on  the  priests,  the  practice  of  Bud- 
dhism appears  to  have  a  most  debasing  influence.  They  have, 
nearly  all  of  them,  an  expression  approaching  to  idiotcy,  which  is 
probably  acquired  in  that  dreamy  state  in  which  one  of  their  most 
famous  professors  is  said  to  have  passed  nine  years,  with  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  a  wall  !  They  say,  with  reference  to  their  systems  of 
moral  retribution,  that  what  a  man  receives  now  is  an  indication  of 
his  conduct  in  a  former  state  ;  and  that  he  may  augur  his  future  con- 
dition by  his  behaviour  in  this  life.  The  merit,  however,  would 
seem  to  consist  as  much  in  inaction  as  action  :  in  the  abstinence 
from  evil,  or  the  mere  self-infliction  of  pain,  rather  than  in  the 
practice  of  good.  They  make  up  an  account  with  heaven,  and  de- 
mand the  balance  in  bliss,  or  pay  it  by  sufferings  and  penances  of 
their  own,  just  like  the  papists  of  Europe."  * 

The  next  witness  is  from  an  intelligent  Scots- 
man who  resided  eleven  years  in  Ceylon  : — 

"  During  the  continuance  of  the  festival,  the  priests  of  Buddha 
seemed  to  think  rt  incumbent  on  them  to  perambulate  the  town 
with  their  begging  dishes,  and  to  go  through  the  ceremony  of  re- 
ceiving alms.  They  moved  on  slowly  with  their  fans  before  their 
faces,  occasionally  halting  to  receive  whatever  food  was  offered 
them,  but  not  asking  for  it.  It  appeared  to  me  that  this  was  more 
of  a  temporary  penance  than  a  regular  practice,  although  to  live 
by  alms  is  enjoined  by  the  rules  of  their  order.     Their  sleek  faces 

*  "The  Chinese,"  by  J.  F.  Davis.  London:  Knight,  1S40,  p.  219. 


I  So    The  Nahiral  History  of  Atheism. 

and  sly  looks  spoke  of  better  fare  procured  elsewhere  with  less 
trouble  and  more  certainty  than  wandering  in  heavy  rain  through 
Kandy,  and  waiting  for  supplies  from  the  more  devout  portion  of 
those  professing  the  Buddhist  religion."  * 

Very  sad,  all  this  !  but  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise ;  for  neither  in  Ceylon  nor  in  Canton,  or 
elsewhere,  do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns  or  figs 
of  thistles.  So  long  as  reverence  is  not  firmly 
wedded  to  reason,  religion  can  never  exist  without 
a  certain  alloy  of  nonsense,  nor  morality  become 
altogether  identified  Avith  Nature  in  a  creature 
with  whom  Truth  is  the  one  proper  law.  Love  the 
one  seemly  inspiration,  and  Energy,  according  to 
truth  and  love,  the  chief  end  of  his  existence. 

*  "Eleven  Years  in  Ceylon,"  by  Forbes,  vol.  i.  pp.  312  and  30i« 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  ATHEISM   OF  REACTION. 

^dcTKopres  ilva  ffocpol  inapavdi^crat/. 

St.  Paul. 

ACTION  AND  REACTION  ARE  EQUAL  AND 
CONTRARY  :  SO  I  was  taught  many  years 
ago  in  the  Natural  Philosophy  class,  Marischal 
College,  Aberdeen  ;  and  through  a  long  life  have 
had  constant  occasion  to  note  the  general  correct- 
ness and  wide  applicability  of  the  sentence.  It  is 
the  nature  of  every  force,  in  a  world  made  up  of 
a  rich  variety  of  opposing  forces,  either  to  be 
stopped  in  its  action  altogether — as  the  advancing 
tide  by  a  rocky  coast — or  to  be  sent  back  on  its 
own  traces,  as  we  see  in  the  heavings  to  and  fro  of 
a  great  crowd  of  people,  when  the  over-pressure  in 
one  direction  produces  a  stronger  pressure  in  the 
opposite  direction,  till  some  sort  of  comfortable 
adjustment  be  achieved  in  which  the  jostled  thou- 


1 82    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

sands  may  breathe  freely.  So  it  is  exactly  in  the 
great  intellectual  and  moral  movements  of  society, 
which  constitute  the  marked  epochs  of  history. 
It  is  impossible  to  live  the  space  of  a  single  gener- 
ation in  the  world  without  seeing  striking  in- 
stances of  this  sort  of  propulsion  and  revulsion  of 
sentiment  pass  before  our  eyes.  What  has  be- 
come now,  for  instance,  of  that  grand  burst  of 
classical  enthusiasm  which,  some  half-a-century 
ago,  sent  Lord  Byron  and  some  score  of  adventur- 
ous Britons  on  the  romantic  expedition  of  driving 
the  Turk  out  of  Greece,  and  reconstituting  a  king- 
dom of  Greek-speaking  men,  beneath  the  white 
majesty  of  the  Periclean  Parthenon  ?  The  Greek 
is  now,  in  John  Bull's  estimate,  only  a  merchant 
of  very  sharp  practice,  and  nothing  more.  Our 
old  ally,  the  Turk,  has  suffered  under  a  similar 
swing  of  the  pendulum  ;  and  the  Russophoby  of 
some  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  is  now  veering 
round  to  the  Russophile  point  of  the  political 
compass,  and  accustoming  itself  to  look  with  a 
grand  cosmopolitan  sympathy  even  on  the  proba- 
bility of  a  speedy  settlement  of  the  great  Arctic 
bear  on  the  tip  of  the  Golden  Horn.  Take,  again, 
the  department  of  Art.  Look  into  any  of  the 
great   English   cathedrals,  and  say   what  you  see 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  183 

there.  The  Internal  walls  of  an  edifice  of  an  es- 
sentially Gothic  type  stuck  over  all  round  with 
monuments  and  other  decorations,  in  the  pure 
Greek,  or  composite  Italo-Roman  style,  as  unlike 
to  what  one  should  expect  there,  as  a  tree  would 
be  which,  growing  up  so  high  on  the  type  of  a 
white-stemmed  birch,  flinging  its  tresses  lightly  on 
the  breeze,  should  suddenly  alter  its  style,  and 
end  in  the  ruddy  arms  and  dark-green  needles  of 
a  Scottish  pine.  What  was  the  cause  of  this  ? 
Simply  the  reaction  from  the  Gothic  style  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  rage  of  admiration  which 
possessed  Europe  for  everything  that  could  boast 
the  prestige  of  Greek  and  Roman  kinship.  In  the 
architectural  books  of  those  days,  you  will  find 
the  Gothic  style  of  church,  college,  or  cottage,  on 
which  we  now  pride  ourselves,  simply  noted  as  a 
barbarism,  which  a  cultivated  taste  will  look  at  to 
avoid.  And  a  similar  phenomenon  may  be  ob- 
served in  every  form  of  physical,  moral,  and  in- 
tellectual life  ;  so  that  we  may  almost  lay  it  down 
as  a  historical  proposition  of  universal  validity  : 
every  social  state  sooner  or  -later  begets  its  contra- 
ry;  and  that  not  only  by  the  natural  power  of 
recoil  which  we  see  in  springs  and  other  elastic 
bodies,  but  from  the   mere   love  of  novelty.      In 


184   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

poetry  this  is  particularly  remarkable.  When 
Pope's  poetry  of  sparkling  antithesis,  sonorous 
swell,  and  shrewd  condensation  had  enjoyed  its 
day,  no  genius,  however  powerful,  could  have  im- 
pressed the  British  public  in  a  similar  degree,  had 
it  presented  itself  in  the  same  form.  A  quite  new 
form  of  conceiving  and  picturing  the  grand  old 
truths  of  Nature  was  required ;  and  this  the  pubhc, 
after  a  short  season  of  ebb,  received  in  large  flood 
from  Cowper  and  Burns,  Wordsworth  and  Shel- 
ley, Byron,  Scott,  and  others.  An  influence  which 
acts  so  potently  and  spreads  so  widely  in  the 
domains  of  politics,  poetry,  and  the  arts,  could 
not  fail  to  show  itself  in  theology.  If  our  maxim 
be  true  that  all  action  has  a  tendency  to  go  into 
the  extreme,  and  that  every  social  state  sooner  or 
later  begets  its  contrary,  then  in  the  movement  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  revolutions  of  social  senti- 
ment, it  may  sometimes  happen  that  religion  be- 
gets ir  religion  J  and  orthodoxy  becomes  the  father 
of  heterodoxy — a  paradoxical  thing,  no  doubt,  to 
say,  but  nevertheless  quite  true,  when  rightly 
understood.  And  to  understand  it  rightly  we 
must  remember  the  great  Aristotelian  maxim,  that 
any  good  misapplied,  or  applied  without  limita- 
tion is  an  evil ;  and  that  the  great  movements  of 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  185 

human  society  called  reforms,  revolutions,  and 
revivals,  take  place  generally  after  the  fashion  of 
floods  in  water,  or  strong  pressure  in  a  crowd, 
which  in  the  nature,  of  the  case  tend  to  excess,  and 
cry  for  limitation.  This  is  what  Solomon  meant 
when  he  said  : — "  Be  not  righteous  overmuch  : 
why  shouldst  thou  destroy  thyself  ?  Be  not  wise 
overmuch  :  why  shouldst  thou  die  before  thy 
time  ? "  When  we  say,  therefore,  irreligion  is 
ofttimes  begotten  from  religion  by  a  natural  re- 
action, we  simply  mean  that  piety  exhibited  to 
the  world  in  a  graceless,  clumsy,  and  unpleasing 
aspect,  or  with  an  obtrusive  forwardness,  or  a 
feverish  impatience,  or  with  a  dictatorial  imperi- 
ousness,  a  stern  harshness,  or  in  any  other  form 
destitute  of  the  proprieties  and  the  pleasantness  of 
well-conditioned  nature,  will  have  itself  to  blame 
if  an  effect  is  produced  the  very  contrary  to  that 
desired.  Shut  the  door  with  a  bang  and  it  opens, 
and  perhaps  strikes  you  on  the  face.'  Do  you 
think  that  strange  ?  No.  Then  as  little  be  sur- 
prised if  certain  stiff,  and  rigid,  and  bristHng  forms 
of  theological  orthodoxy  should  produce  hetero- 
doxy ;  nay  that  even  theism,  the  only  reasonable 
theory  of  the  universe,  in  the  blundering  fashion 
in   which    you    state    it    may    possibly    produce 


1 86    The  Nahtral  History  of  Atheism. 

atheism,  the  most  unreasonable  of  all  theories. 
Every  exaggerated  statement,  or  offensively-word- 
ed proposition  —  even  when  there  is  fundamental 
truth  in  the  matter — cannot  escape  from  a  double 
evil  consequence ;  it  not  only  irritates  the  person 
whom  it  was  meant  to  convince,  but  it  supplies 
him  with  an  argument  of  which  he  will  not  fail  to 
make  a  dexterous  use.  And  in  this  way,  every 
abuse  in  religion,  and  every  crude  conception  and 
rash  assertion  in  theology,  has  a  natural  tendency 
to  produce  irreligion,.  and  to  end,  where  other 
influences  co  operate,  in  practical  or  speculative 
atheism.  It  will  be  the  business  of  this  paper  to 
look  at  this  special  phase  of  atheism,  somewhat  in 
detail. 

Let  us  take  a  glance,  in  the  first  place,  at  the 
greatest  event  in  the  moral  history  of  modern 
Europe  —  the  Reformation,  or  Revolution,  as  it 
should  rather  have  been  called,  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  the  sixteenth  century.  This  terrible 
ecclesiastical  earthquake  —  for  so  we  may  quite 
soberly  call  it  —  was  unquestionably  a  reaction 
from  the  excess  of  sacerdotal  assertiveness,  and  the 
abuse  of  ecclesiastical  power,  in  the  latter  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  How  did  this  excess  show 
itself?    and  in  what  shape  did  it  give  sharp  offence 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  187 

to  the  delicate  conscience  of  Martin  Luther,  and 
rouse  his  sleeping  wrath  into  a  thunderstorm  of 
holy  indignation  ?  Plainly  by  his  parading  the 
public  places,  and  marching  through  the  highways 
of  Christendom  with  a  sacerdotal  gospel  of  salva- 
tion by  works  :  and  what  sort  of  works  ?  Of 
course,  conventional  and  arbitrary  works,  penances 
and  payments  of  various  kinds  imposed  by  author- 
ity of  the  all-powerful  clergy,  and  having  little  or 
nothing  in  common  with  the  morality  of  a  pure 
life,  and  a  noble  character,  which  is  the  character- 
istic glory  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  as-  contrasted 
with  the  great  mass  of  polytheistic  religions,  the 
strange  growths  of  sensuous  excitement  and  trans- 
cendental imagination.  Against  this  abuse  Luther 
protested  exactly  in  the  same  way,  and  with  simi- 
lar effect,  as  St.  Paul  protested  against  the  ritual- 
ism, ceremonialism,  and  externalism  of  various 
kinds,  on  which  the  Jews  raised  a  meritorious 
claim  of  preference  before  the  general  Father  of  the 
human  race.  Of  meritorious  preferential  claims, 
especially  when  founded  on  works  of  a  conven- 
tional, arbitrary,  and  institutional  character,  there 
can  be  no  mention  before  God  :  ''  the  just  Hve  by 
faith  " — faith  in  that  Saviour  who  preached  a  per- 
fect ideal  of  morality,  existing  always  as  a  measure 


1 88    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

of  attainment,  but  never  as  a  claim  of  merit.  This 
great  doctrine,  preached  by  St.  Paul  and  Luther, 
and  stated  with  most  effective  emphasis  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  the  Galatians,  has 
saved  the  world  twice — once  from  the  cumbrous 
and  narrow-minded  ceremonialism  of  the  Jews, 
and  again  from  the  despotic  and  soul-stupefying 
sacerdotalism  of  the  Romanists.  So  far  well.  But 
the  miner's  son  of  Eisleben  was  a  man  of  too  vol- 
canic a  temper  to  be  able  to  keep  the  reaction 
which  he  roused  within  the  bounds  of  salutary 
moral  therapeutics.  The  sacerdotal  ossification 
into  which  he  had  cast  the  blood  of  a  new  life, 
found  itself  confronted  with  a  fever  of.  individualism 
in  various  violent  and  grotesque  manifestations,  re- 
moved not  less  from  the  imperious  dogmatism  of 
the  Roman  popes  than  from  the  moderation,  hu- 
manity, and  sound-mindedness  which  characterised 
the  gospel  of  St.  Paul  :  and  anarchy  and  confu- 
sion, with  the  braying  of  a  theological  ass  here, 
the  cackling  of  a  clerical  goose  there,  and  the  rav- 
ings of  a  sectarian  madman  in  a  third  quarter, 
began  to  show  face  to  such  a  degree  that  sensible 
and  quietly-disposed  men,  like  Erasmus,  became 
seriously  alarmed  before  the  spirits  they  had  con- 
jured up,  and   retreated,  with  a  devout  timidity, 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  189 

into  the  sacred  ark  of  the  old  Catholic  Church. 
But  even  with  all  these  extravagances,  the  simple 
doctrine  of  Luther,  that  the  just  shall  live  by  faith, 
was  exactly,  as  in  the  time  of  St.  Paul,  forthwith 
subjected  to  a  misunderstanding,  which  even  now 
works  perniciously  in  some  Protestant  churches, 
and  breeds,  in  a  certain  class  of  minds,  a  distaste 
for  Christianity  which  may  naturally  fall  into  gen- 
eral irreligion,  and  even  rush  blindly  into  the  blank 
vacuities  of  atheism.  This  abuse  consists  simply 
in  planting  faith  antagonistically,  not  to  ceremo- 
nial, conventional,  and  statutory  work,  or  to  work 
set  up  as  a  meritorious  human  claim,  but  to  vir- 
tuous works  generally  ;  a  perversity  sufficiently 
evident  to  any  one  who  will  seriously  study  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
where  faith  is  defined  as  a  practical  conviction  of 
the  reality  of  God's  moral  government,  and  a 
conviction  manifesting  itself  naturally  and  necessa- 
rily in  a  course  of  virtuous,  self-sacrificing,  and 
heroic  conduct,  such  as  we  see  in  the  hves  of  all 
the  great  statesmen,  patriots,  and  prophets  which 
the  common  consent  of  mankind  has  set  up  for 
models  of  imitation  in  the  great  Pantheon  of  hu- 
manity. Thus  Christian  faith  and  works  are  not 
opposed,  but  are  essentially  one  ;  or,  at  least,  two, 


IQO   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

of  which  the  one  as  necessarily  produces  the  other, 
as  the  fruit  of  a  flower  is  developed  out  of  the 
blossom.  How  far  this  misapplication  or  one- 
sided statement  of  the  great  Protestant  doctrine 
of  salvation  by  faith  has  worked  in  producing, 
in  the  way  of  reaction,  a  prejudice  against  Evan- 
gelical preaching  altogether,  those  whose  ears 
are  open  to  what  is  felt  and  said  by  some  of  the 
most  serious  thinkers  in  the  midst  of  us,  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  perceiving.  Persons  who  reject 
Christianity,  or,  like  Mr.  Atkinson  and  Miss  Mar- 
tineau,  openly  profess  a  sort  of  atheism  or  agnosti- 
cism, do  it  not  unfrequently  on  the  ground  that 
Christianity  has  failed  in  its  mission  ;  it  has  not 
converted  the  world,* — and  no  wonder  ;  for  a  re- 
ligion that  preaches  salvation  by  faith  and  not  by 
works,  naturally  directs  attention  into  a  transcen- 
dental region  of  what  has  been  called  ''  other- 
worldliness,"  and  far  away  from  all  those  practical 
plans  for  the  improvement  of  the  world  and  the 
progress  of  society  which  fall  under  the  profane 
category  of  good  works.  Of  course  we  do  not 
say  that  this  way  of  stating  the  case  against  the 
religion  of  the  gospel  is  in  any  case  to  be  taken 
as  a  true  account  of  the  whole  matter  ;  so  far 
*  Letters  of  Atkinson  and  Martineau,  p.  172. 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  191 

as  my  experience  has  gone,  the  most  zealous 
Christians,  even  when  narrow-minded  and  bigoted, 
as  they  too  frequently  are,  can  bear  compari- 
son, in  respect  of  good  works,  with  the  most 
decided  and  thorough-going  of  the  atheistical  or 
agnostic  class  ;  but  that  there  is  some  truth  in  it, 
and  a  truth,  which  it  behoves  Christian  preachers 
most  seriously  to  consider,  I  have  long  been  con- 
vinced. There  is  a  style  of  preaching,  the  unprac- 
tical and  unfruitful  nature  of  which  has  a  tendency 
to  drive  persons  of  a  practical  turn  of  mind  directly 
into  irreligion  and  practical  atheism  :  they  see  that 
something  ought  to  be  done  for  society  which  the 
Church  will  not  do,  or  the  Church  cannot  do ; 
and,  therefore,  they  resort  to  other  and,  it  may  be, 
antagonistic  agencies.  Akin  to  the  one-sidedness 
of  that  theology  which  preaches  faith  rather  as  a 
means  of  justification  from  past  guilt,  than  as  a 
habitual  formative  principle  to  mould  the  character 
and  to  direct  the  life,  is  the  sort  of  rampant  ortho- 
doxy which  delights  in  doctrinal  exaggeration  of 
mysteries,  and  which  is  never  so  happy  as  when  it 
can  plant  itself  behind  the  broad  shield  of  unintel- 
ligible formulas  and  traditionary  shibboleths,  to 
pluck  Reason  by  the  beard,  and  bid  open  defiance 
to  that  grand  principle  of  the  Scottish  philosophy 


192    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

called  common-sense.  Those  who  excite  to  an 
atheistical  reaction  in  this  fashion,  sin  even  more 
grievously  against  St.  Paul's  doctrine  in  the  He- 
brews than  those  so-called  federal  theologians  who 
exhaust  their  whole  thought  in  the  inculcation  of  a 
faith,  whose  principal  object  is  to  shake  off  the  bur- 
den of  inherited  guilt  which  lies  upon  us  from  the 
sin  of  our  primal  father  in  Paradise.  For  there  is 
unquestionably  a  very  strong  element  of  a  moral 
nature  in  this  faith  ;  and  therefore  in  so  far  it  is 
evangelical.  But  that  other  faith  of  cataphract 
orthodoxy  mailed  in  triple  brass,  of  which  we  now 
speak,  is  a  purely  intellectual  affair,  and  as  such 
altogether  outside  the  pale  of  that  saving  faith,  by 
which  sinful  souls  under  gospel  preaching  are 
dragged  out  of  the  mire  of  sensuality,  and  the 
slavery  of  degrading  fashions,  into  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  No  doubt,  as  St.  Paul 
distinctly  enough  states,  there  must  be  a  root  of 
firm  doctrinal  behef  at  the  bottom  of  all  Christian 
faith,  or  rather,  we  might  say,  of  all  practical  faith  : 
for  who  will  leap  from  his  bed  and  rouse  the  town 
at  midnight,  and  cry  for  water,  and  apply  his  hand 
to  the  forcing-pump,  if  he  does  not  believe  that  the 
house  is  on  fire  ?  Who  will  prepare  to  bury  his 
friend,  if  he  does  not  believe  that  he  is  dead  ?     Who 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  193 

will  sow  seed  in  spring,  if  he  does  not  believe  that 
it  will  bear  a  rich  crop  of  beneficent  fruitage  in  the 
autumn?  *' He  that  cometh  to  God,"  therefore 
unquestionably,  '*  must  believe  that  He  IS,  and 
that  He  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  Him."  But  this  is  quite  a  different  thing 
from  saying  that  whoso  believeth  not  this  or  the 
other  dogma  about  the  Divine  nature  shall,  with- 
out doubt,  be  eternally  damned.  Here  we  have  a 
usurpation  of  the  rightful  throne  of  an  essentially 
moral  faith,  by  a  faith  purely  and  avowedly  intel- 
lectual, and  which  has  just  as  little  to  do  with  the 
evangelical  faith  which  worketh  by  love,  as  any 
proposition  in  Euclid  has,  about  the  qualities  of  tri- 
angles, or  any  Algebraic  formula  about  the  relations 
of  numbers.  To  any  man,  with  or  without  lawn 
sleeves,  who  stands  up  in  a  Christian  congregation, 
and  fulminates  damnation  to  poor  sinful  mortals  on 
such  grounds,  there  is  only  one  reply  to  be  made  : 
—  ''Ye  know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  ye  are  of." 
The  spirit  from  which  damnatory  declarations  of 
this  kind  proceed  is  a  mingled  spirit  of  ignorance, 
conceit,  presumption,  insolence,  and  pedantry  ; 
and  has  more  to  answer  for  in  the  way  of  creating 
atheism,  than  any  other  fault  of  Christian  preach- 
ers that  has  come  under  my  observation.     Against 

9 


194   ^'^^  Natter al  History  of  Atheism, 

declarations  of  this  kind,  however  solemnly  made, 
and  however  traditionally  hallowed,  the  moral  and 
intellectual  nature  of  the  most  soundly-constituted 
minds  rises  up  in  instinctive  rebellion  ;  the  intellect- 
ual nature,  because  the  propounding  of  dogmas  in 
a  scholastic  form  about  the  nature  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  shows  an  utter  ignorance  of  the  proper  func- 
tions and  limits  of  the  human  intellect ;  and  the 
moral  nature  even  more  emphatically,  because  to 
make  fellowship  in  any  religion  conditional  on  the 
merely  intellectual  acceptance  of  an  abstract  propo- 
sition addressed  to  the  understanding,  is  to  remove 
religion  altogether  out  of  its  own  region,  where  it 
can  bear  fruit,  and  to  transplant  it  into  a  soil  where 
it  can  show  only  prickles  that  fret  the  skin,  and 
thorns  that  go  deeply  into  the  flesh — a  procedure, 
in  fact,  not  a  whit  less  absurd  than  to  plant  pota- 
toes on  bare  rocks,  and  expect  that  they  shall 
grow,  or  to  fling  a  flouncing  fish  upon  the  dry 
beach,  and  demand  that  it  shall  swim. 

So  much  for  the  caricatures  of  faith  which,  being 
mistaken  for  the  genuine  portraiture,  have  a  ten- 
dency to  drive  persons  of  a  hasty  temper  and  a 
superficial  observation  into  an  anti-Christian  atti- 
tude, or  even  right  off  into  the  dreary  silences, 
blank  vacuities,  and  blind  necessities  of  speculative 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  195 

atheism.  But  it  is  not  only  in  their  way  of  present- 
ing faith  generally,  but  in  their  rash  and  unreasoned 
statement  of  special  points  of  Christian  belief,  that 
our  theologians  have  greatly  erred.  What,  for 
instance,  made  a  greater  noise  in  the  world  of 
theological  doctrine  at  one  time  than  the  five  points 
of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  which  caused  the  persecution 
of  Grotius  and  the  noble  company  of  Arminian 
doctors  in  Holland  ?  Wonderful  subtleties  and 
windy  battlements,  all  of  which  no  man  of  sense  at 
the  present  day  thinks  worthy  even  of  a  passing 
regard.  Why  ?  Because  these  famous  five  points 
all  relate  to  God's  decrees,  and  not  to  man's  work  ; 
and  therefore  are  properly  left  to  God,  while  we 
attend  to  our  duty.  No  doubt  St.  Paul  has  laid 
down  the  doctrine  of  divine  decrees  grandly  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  do 
so,  in  arguing  with  the  Jews,  who  nourished  the 
conceit  that  they  were  a  chosen  people,  to  whom, 
by  preference,  God  must  communicate  his  saving 
knowledge,  while  the  rest  of  the  world  was  allowed 
to  sleep  in  the  darkest  ignorance,  and  to  rot  in  the 
lowest  sensuality.  To  beat  down  such  a  narrow- 
minded  conceit  and  presumptuous  notion  of  heri- 
ditary  privilege,  the  great  Apostle  was  obliged  to 
state  the  doctrine  that,  though  all  privilege  comes 


196    The  Natural  Htstojy  of  Atheism. 

from  Divine  decree  and  special  Divine  favour,  it 
does  so,  not  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  ground 
of  vain  boast  on  the  part  of  the  favoured  people  or 
person,  but  for  the  purpose  and  with  the  effect  of 
opening  up  a  higher  sphere  of  action,  with  a  more 
serious  responsibility ;  that  is  to  say,  in  other 
words,  he  taught  the  doctrine  of  predestination 
and  reprobation,  not  in  the  way  of  arbitrary  selec- 
tion and  rejection,  as  the  extreme  Calvinistic  theo- 
logians have  rashly  taught,  but  in  the  form  of  a 
necessary  law  in  the  moral  world,  according  to 
which  divinely  conferred  gifts — and  all  gifts  come 
from  God — when  abused,  lead  to  forfeiture  and 
loss,  when  improved,  to  greater  gain  and  more 
distinguished  privilege.  According  to  this  com- 
mon-sense view — and  it  is  the  plain  and  obvious 
drift  of  the  Epistle — all  the  fierce  and  bloody  glad- 
iatorship  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians  about 
the  orthodoxy  of  the  five  points  of  a  scholastic 
doctrine  of  Divine  decrees  was  an  episode  in  the 
great  epos  of  Christian  life,  interpolated  by  men 
who  were  as  remote  from  the  broad,  practical  drift 
of  the  Pauline  gospel  as  they  were  devoid  of  the 
common  feelings  of  humanity.  St.  Paul,  the  inno- 
cent occasion  of  all  this  barbarity,  would  have 
made   short  scores  of  their   interminable  debates 


The  Atheism  of  Reactio7t,  197 

and  overbearing  dogmas.  *'  Gentlemen,"  he 
would  have  said,  with  that  fine  instinct  of  practi- 
cal sagacity  which  directed  all  his  teachings, 
"Gentlemen,  you  beat  the  wind:  Necessity  is 
true,  because  nothing  can  escape  the  wide  embrace 
of  the  Divine  Sovereignty :  Liberty — that  is,  lib- 
erty within  certain  limits,  is  a  fact — because  the 
common  instinct  of  humanity  proves  that  it  is  so  : 
you  must  believe  both,  and  quarrel  about  neither. 
But  believe  not  metaphysically  or  scholastically, 
but  practically,  and  in  such  a  way  as  the  Jews,  my 
countrymen,  did  not  believe,  and  suffered  accord- 
ingly." I  have  brought  forward  this  matter  spe- 
cially because,  though  the  five  Calvinistic  points 
are  now  scarcely  known  by  name  to  many  well- 
educated  persons,  they  are  all  involved  in  the  cate- 
chism used  in  the  elementary  schools  of  Scotland, 
and  have  to  my  knowledge  occasioned  no  small 
amount  of  misery  and  soul-torture  to  young  per- 
sons beginning  seriously  to  look  into  the  great 
truths  of  religion  and  morals.  Thoughtful  young 
persons  in  Scotland,  under  the  influence  of  such 
Calvinistic  teaching,  will  be  found  vexing  and  per- 
plexing themselves  most  lamentably  about  their 
special  election  or  reprobation  ;  than  which  a  more 
unprofitable  exercise,  or  more  out  of  place,  cannot 


198    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

well  be  imagined.  All  such  questions  belong 
either  to  the  past  or  to  the  future,  and  as  such  lie 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite.  Man  is  a  creature  of 
the  present ;  and  he  must  strike  the  nail  upon  the 
head  in  the  special  work  before  him,  not  because 
he  has  been  predestinated  to  do  so,  or  because  it 
may  turn  out  after  trial  that  he  has  not  been  pre- 
destinated to  do  so,  but  simply  because  it  is  before 
him.  With  the  decrees  of  God,  however  promi- 
nently they  may  stand  in  the  vestibule  of  the  As- 
sembly's Catechism,  a  young  man  on  the  threshold 
of  Hfe  has  no  more  to  do  than  he  has  with  the 
creation  of  the  world,  or  with  the  consummation 
of  all  things. 

Another  dogma,  with  the  inculcation  of  which 
the  Calvinistic  theologians  have  done  good  service 
to  the  anti-Christian  tendencies  of  some  respect- 
able classes  of  the  community,  is  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin.  With  regard  to  this,  Coleridge,  who, 
in  other  matters,  spoke  vaguely  enough,  said  the 
proper  thing  in  a  single  word—"  Original  sin  is 
not  a  doctrine,  but  a  FACT."  So  stated,  it  is  only 
what  we  see  every  day  before  our  eyes,  and  can, 
of  course,  form  no  special  objection  against  Chris- 
tianity. That  out  of  good  seed  a  good  plant  will 
grow,  and  out  of  bad  seed  a  bad  plant,  and  that 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  199 

from  generation  to  generation,  till  the  action  of 
fresh  favourable  influences  cause  a  change,  is  a 
principle  of  which  the  exemplifications  are  as  wide 
as  the  range  of  organized  life  upon  the  globe. 
Books  have  been  written  on  hereditary  virtues  and 
hereditary  vices  ;  and  every  family  portrait-gallery, 
going  back  for  long  centuries,  notwithstanding 
strange  variations,  arising  naturally  from  cross  affin- 
ities, will  revert  now  and  then  to  a  striking  trick 
of  the  original  type.  So  far,  so  well.  But  now 
in  comes  our  cataphract  theologic  doctor,  with  his 
host  of  dogmatic  exaggerations,  and  thunders  out 
his  dogma  of  inherited  GUILT,  at  which  straightway 
an  honest  thinker's  whole  moral  nature  bristles  up 
in  rebellion.  Moral  merit  and  demerit  are  in  the 
very  nature  of  things  personal ;  to  imagine  their 
transference  is  to  destroy  their  definition.  If  every 
baby  when  born,  in  virtue  of  an  act  of  transgres- 
sion committed  some  six  or  eight  thousand  years 
ago  by  the  father  of  the  race,  must  be  confessed 
a  ''  hell-deserving  sinner,"  and  lying  on  the  brink 
of  eternal  damnation  as  soon  as  it  lies  on  its 
nurse's  lap,  then  every  man  of  sound  moral  feeling 
is  entitled  to  protest  against  a  doctrine  of  which 
such  a  cruel  absurdity  is  a  necessary  postulate. 
This  brings  us  to  another  stone  of  stumbling, 


200   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

which  the  Christian  doctors  have  set  up,  and  which 
still  remains  as  a  very  ugly  porter  to  many  persons 
standing  at  the  gate  of  the  house  which  is  called 
Beautiful,  and  barring  a  kindly  entrance.  I  mean, 
of  course,  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishments. 
The  ancient  Greeks  also  taught  this  doctrine  ;  but 
they  taught  it  in  a  very  modified  form,  as  any  one 
may  see  in  the  sixth  book  of  Virgil,  or  in  the 
more  detailed  descriptions  of  his  great  predecessor 
in  that  teaching — the  philosopher  Plato  : — 

**  Sedet,  aeternumque  sedebit, 
Infelix  Theseus." 

**  Discite  justitiam  moniti,  et  non  temnere  divos." 

Only  a  few  flaming  offenders  were  condemned  to 
this  state  of  hopeless  reprobation  and  inexhaustible 
torture  ;  and  besides,  as  part  of  a  theology  not 
laid  down  in  rigid  propositions,  but  floating  loosely 
in  the  shape  of  traditional  fancies,  such  things 
could  be  stated  in  books,  without  giving  any  great 
offence  to  serious  thinkers.  They  quietly  pushed 
this  and  other  offensive  matters  aside,  and  clung 
to  what  was  good  and  profitable.  But  the  Chris- 
tian churches,  unfortunately,  cannot  do  so.  They 
have  committed  themselves  to  a  theology,  drawn 
up  by  scholastic  persons,  in  a  series  of  formal  prop- 
ositions which  challenge  contradiction  and  refuse 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  201 

compromise.  Therefore,  the  doctrine  of  infinite 
torture  for  finite  sins  is  still  stoutly  maintained  as 
a  point  of  Christian  faith,  and  as  stoutly  disowned 
by  a  large  class  of  benevolent  and  thoughtful  per- 
sons, who  look  upon  such  a  doctrine  as  utterly  in- 
consistent with  the  conception  of  a  wise  and  ben- 
evolent Being.*  Now,  if  there  was  not  a  great 
deal  of  dogmatic  obstinacy,  a  fair  amount  of  her- 
meneutical  ignorance,  and  a  considerable  vein  of 
cowardice  also  in  the  ecclesiastical  mind,  this 
stumbhng-block  might  easily  be  removed.  It  does 
not  require  any  very  profound  scholarship  to  know 
that  the  word  al(i>vLo^,  which  we  translate  everlast- 
ing ^  does  not  signify  eternity  absolutely  and  meta- 
physically :  but  only  popularly,  as  when  we  say 
that  a  man  is  an  eternal  fool,  meaning  only  that  he 
is  a  very  great  fool.  Biblical  interpreters  also 
ought  to  bear  in  mind,  which  they  constantly  seem 
determined  rather  to  forget,  that  the  Scriptures 
are  not  written  in  the  style  of  a  metaphysical  or 
curiously-scientific  treatise  ;  but  the  language 
throughout  is  essentially  popular,  and  perhaps 
necessarily  with  somewhat  of  that  vagueness  which 

*  J.  S.  Mill's  Autobiography,  chap.  ii.  Read  also  Childers'  Pali 
Dictionary,  article  Nibbanam,  where  he  compares  the  Buddhist 
annihilation  with  the  Christian  damnation  — not  to  the  advantage 
of  the  latter. 

Q* 


202    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

characterises  colloquial  language  as  contrasted 
with  the  style  of  a  professorial  lecture,  or  a  scien- 
tific definition. 

Another  stumbling-block  which  theologians 
have  laid  in  the  way  of  the  devotees  of  physical 
science,  is  the  CREATION  OUT  OF  nothing. 
This  dogma,  which,  as  every  scholar  knows,  is  not 
necessarily  contained  in  any  place,  whether  of  the 
Old  or  New  Testament,  arose  in  the  Jewish 
Church,  and  has  been  stamped  with  orthodox 
authority  in  Christendom,  partly  from  a  pious 
desire  to  magnify  the  Divine  Omnipotence,  partly 
from  the  timid  stupidity  of  clinging  to  the  letter, 
instead  of  breathing  the  spirit  of  Scripture  ;  and 
partly  also  from  the  evil  trick  which  we  have  just 
mentioned  of  importing  metaphysics  and  scholas- 
tic definitions  into  the  Bible,  from  which  all  the 
Scriptures  are  the  furthest  possible  removed. 
Now  the  objection  to  this  doctrine  on  the  part  of 
modern  thinkers  I  conceive  to  be  this  —  that, 
though  not  perhaps  absolutely  impossible,  it  is 
contrary  to  all  known  experience,  and  highly  im- 
probable, if  we  are  to  judge  of  the  constitution  of 
things  from  what  we  see,  not  from  what  we  choose 
to  imagine.  It  is  the  vulgar'  imagination  which 
delights  to  represent  the  Supreme  Being  as  a  sort 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  203 

of  omnipotent  harlequin,  launching  the  fiat  of  his 
volition,  as   the  nimble    gentleman   in   the   panto- 
mime  strikes   the   table  with   his  wand,  and   out 
comes  a  man,  or  a  monkey,  or  something  else,  out 
of  nothing.     This  is  man's  crude  conception  ;    but 
God's  ways  are  not  as  man's  ways  :    and  his  way  is 
EVOLUTION.     Nothing  is  created  out  of  nothing ; 
and   mere  volition,  even  of  an  omnipotent  Being, 
cannot  be  conceived  as  bringing  into  existence  a 
thing  of  an  absolutely  opposite  nature,  called  mat- 
ter.    What  we  see  everywhere  in  us  and  above  us, 
and  around  us,  simply  is,  that  the  present  grows 
out  of  the  past,  as  the  future  grows   out  of  the 
present.     Growth,  therefore,  necessary  and  essen- 
tial growth,  by  inherent  reasonable  force,  is  the 
proper  expression  of  the  great  Divine  fact  of  the 
universe.     To  us  dependent  ephemeral  creatures, 
all  existence  is  a  Divine  miracle  ;  and  the  continu- 
ity of  that  Divine  miracle  in  the  shape  of  what  we 
call  growth  is,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  eternal 
form   of  the   Divine   creativeness.     The   absolute 
duaHsm  of  mind  and  matter  which  is  imphed  in  the 
received  orthodoxy  of  the  Church,  is  not  warrant- 
ed by  any  fact  that  exact  science  can  recognise  ; 
nowhere  do  we  find  mind  acting  without  a  mate- 
rial instrument,  nowhere  matter  absolutely  divorc- 


204   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

ed  from  the  action  of  inherent  forces,  inasmuch  as 
even  the  most  motionless  statical  condition  of 
things  most  solid  is  always  produced  by  a  balance 
of  forces  in  some  way  or  other — forces  which,  if 
they  are  not  blind,  but  acting  according  to  a  calcu- 
lated law,  as  they  manifestly  do,  are  only  another 
name  for  Mind.  This  view  of  the  constitution  of 
the  universe,  though  quite  familiar  to  the  wisest 
of  the  ancient  Greeks,  when  propounded  in  the  face 
of  our  orthodox  Christian  theology,  is  generally 
disowned  with  a  certain  pious  horror  as  Panthe- 
ism, a  word  to  which  a  great  chorus  of  thoughtless 
and  ill-informed  people  are  straightway  ready  to 
echo  back.  Atheism — with  the  feeling  that  the  two 
terms,  though  etymologically  as  opposed  as  white 
and  black,  are  practically  the  same.  Now  the  re- 
ligious world  here  is  evidently  confounding  two 
very  different  things  under  a  common  name,  as 
the  word  Sophist,  for  instance,  through  the  shift- 
ing phases  of  more  than  two  thousand  years  of  a 
literary  life,  has  been  used  to  denote  the  most 
varied  types  of  the  intellectual  man,  from  the  pro- 
foundest  thinker  to  the  shallowest  quibbler.  Pan- 
theism, scientifically  understood,  has  nothing  to 
do  either  with  materialism  or  with  atheism.  It  is 
opposed  to  Bitheism  or  to   DuaUsm,  and  simply 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  205 

denies  the  existence  of  two  opposite  entities  in  the 
world  of  Divine  reahty,  while  it  asserts  the  exist- 
ence of  only  one.  The  world  is  essentially  one  ; 
and  the  All,  though  externally  many,  is,  when 
traced  to  its  deepest  roots,  not  different  from  the 
One ;  as  the  human  body,  for  instance,  is  both 
one  and  many ;  the  fingers,  which  are  five,  be- 
longing nevertheless  to  the  unity  of  the  hand  ; 
and  the  upper  and  lower  extremities,  though  four, 
belonging  in  the  same  way  to  the  essential  unity 
of  the  body.  The  term  Pantheism,  therefore,  is 
not  opposed  to  unity,  or  to  the  principle  of  unity 
in  the  world,  which  is  God  ;  and  a  Pantheist,  as 
Hegel  well  said  of  Spinoza,  may  more  properly 
be  said  to  deny  the  world,  than  to  deny  God.  It 
is  possible,  however,  for  a  Pantheist  to  be  such  a 
one-si'ded  creature  as  not  to  perceive  the  central 
unity  which  binds  the  cosmos  into  a  grand  organ- 
ized whole.  He  may  look  only  at  the  outside  of 
appearances,  and  see  nothing  but  an  infinite  drift 
and  jostle  and  jabble  of  unreasoned  atoms,  pro- 
ducing, in  some  blind,  utterly  inexplicable  fashion 
a  thing  on  which  we  impose  an  imaginary  unity 
by  the  use  of  the  term  universe.  In  this  case  the 
pantheist  becomes  what  is  usually  called  a  mate- 
rialist, or  an  atheist  of  the  most  hopeless  and  in- 


2o6    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

curable  class.  But  whoever  holds  by  the  two 
poles  of  actual  existence — the  ev  and  the  irav  of 
the  Greeks — or  the  centre  and  the  periphery,  if  the 
analogy  of  a  circle  may  seem  to  suit  better — this 
pantheist,  by  whatever  name  he  may  be  called, 
simply  denies  dualism,  and  asserts  the  co-essential 
and  co-eternal  necessary  existence  of  the  internal 
and  the  external,  the  one  and  the  many,  in  the 
constitution  of  the  universe.  His  theory  affects 
only  the  nature  of  the  bond  which  binds  together 
the  outside  and  the  inside  of  the  All.  If,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Paley's  analogy  taken  literally,  the 
world  may  by  a  mechanical  generation  have  some- 
times been  conceived  as  a  watch  made  by  a  watch- 
maker, according  to  the  pantheistic  way  of  look- 
ing at  things  the  world  might  be  called  an  animal 
— Qeiov  ^(bov,  as  Plato,  we  remember,  has  it,  in  the 
concluding  sentence  of  the  '*  Timaeus."  Nor  will 
it  do  to  say  that  a  man  who  is  a  pantheist,  even  in 
the  best  sense,  must  necessarily  deny  religion,  be- 
cause his  theory  destroys  human  personaHty,  and 
denies  individual  responsibihty,  on  the  foundation 
of  which  all  human  society,  as  well  as  all  religious 
obligation,  is  constituted.  Freedom,  personality, 
and  responsibility  are  facts  which  no  theological  or 
metaphysical  theories  can  meddle  with,  any  more 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  207 

than  they  can  with  generation,  or  appetite,  or  di- 
gestion. The  charge  of  annihilating  individual 
responsibility  can  be  brought  against  Calvinism 
with  as  much  and  as  little  justice  as  against  Spi- 
nozism.  The  answer  to  all  such  speculative  objec- 
tions from  transcendental  theories,  when  brought 
into  the  world  of  practice,  is  a  fact  and  a  flogging  : 
somewhat  in  the  style  that  we  read  of  Zeno  the 
Stoic,  who,  like  Calvin,  was  a  great  predestinarian, 
and  on  one  occasion,  being  about  to  flog  his  slave 
for  an  act  of  theft,  had  his  philosophy  thrown 
abruptly  in  his  face,  with  the  apology — *'Yes, 
master,  I  did  steal  the  article  ;  but  I  could  not 
help  it:  it  was  ordained."  To  which  the  philoso- 
pher calmly  replied  : — "  Yes  ;  but  it  was  ordained 
also  that  whoso  steals  shall  be  flogged  !  " 

The  offence  given  by  theologians  to  reasonable 
men,  when  they  set  themselves  in  an  authoritative 
and  oracular  style  to  interpret  the  Divine  pro- 
cedure, and  to  point  out  what  pious  people  call 
''judgments,"  is  so  manifold  that  it  would  require 
a  whole  chapter  to  tell  off  even  the  heads  of  its 
multiplied  absurdity.  The  general  principle  that 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  false  readings  of 
Providence  may  be  described  as  a  tendency  to 
look  at  every  manifestation  of  Divine  energy  that 


2o8    The  Natti7'al  History  of  Atheisin. 

falls  under  our  eye  in  the  light  of  human  interests, 
and  from  the  narrow  human  point  of  view  only. 
This  is  an  element  which  plays  a  prominent  part 
in  all  early  mythologies ;  and  we  shall  deceive 
ourselves  very  much  indeed,  if  we  imagine  that  it 
plays  no  part  in  our  sermons  and  our  books  of  godly 
edification  now.  And  yet  if  we  consider  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  mundane  system,  and  the  complexity 
of  the  spheral  relations,  we  ought  to  perceive  that 
few  things  can  be  more  absurd  than  to  imagine 
that  a  terrible  thunderstorm,  for  instance,  or  a 
swell  of  the  waters  in  Morayshire  or  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  or  a  failure  in  the  potato  crop,  must 
necessarily  have  something  to  do  with  the  follies 
or  the  faults  of  some  person  or  persons  who  may 
suffer  from  such  calamities.  Generally  speaking 
we  may  say,  that  the  discomfort  which  any  indi- 
vidual creature  may  at  any  time  suffer  in  the 
course  of  his  career  from  the  general  arrangements 
of  Providence,  affords  not  the  sHghtest  ground  for 
his  looking  on  these  discomforts  as  having  any 
special  personal  reference  to  himself.  It  is  differ- 
ent, of  course,  with  evil  which  arises  in  our  own 
little  world,  both  the  cause  and  the  cure  of  which 
may  oftentimes  be  sufficiently  patent.  If  a  man 
drink  half-a-dozen   glasses  of  strong  spirits,   and 


The  Atheism  of  Reactto?t.  209 

lose  the  use  of  his  legs  to-day,  and  find  an  un- 
pleasant throbbing  in  his  temples  to-morrow,  this 
is  '*  a  judgment  "  which  he  may  interpret,  without 
presumption,  and  with  great  profit.  But  if  an 
invasion  of  woes  and  a  prostration  of  all  prosperity 
should  overtake  him,  such  as  that  which  over- 
whelmed the  patriarch  Job,  then  let  him  read  that 
wonderful  old  theological  drama  carefully,  and 
learn  to  hold  his  tongue,  and  to  withhold  his 
counsel  in  the  presence  of  the  Most  High.  Man 
may  know  many  things,  but  he  has  no  vocation  to 
set  up  as  an  interpreter-general  of  the  Divine  pro- 
cedure, whether  in  reference  to  himself  or  to  his 
fellow-men.  I  say  it  with  sorrow  ;  but  there  is  in 
a  certain  class  of  pious  books  a  great  deal  too 
much  of  this  theological  interpretation  of  circum- 
stances, as  if  God  were  doing  everything  in  the 
large  scheme  of  his  varied  universe  specially  with 
reference  to  '*  the  frames  and  feelings  "  of  a  petty 
individual,  of  no  more  consequence  in  the  system 
of  things  than  the  single  ant  of  a  single  ant-hill  in 
the  economy  of  a  large  forest.  Answers  to  prayer 
in  the  biography  of  pious  persons  are  often  as 
ridiculous  as  interpretations  of  judgments  are  pre- 
sumptuous. If  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
conclude  that  those  on  whom  the  Tower  of  Siloam 


2IO   The  Natural  History  of  Atheisfn, 

fell  were  greater  sinners  than  those  on  whom  it  fell 
not,  and,  if  they  justly  got  an  evasive  answer  who 
asked  whether  this  man  sinned  or  his  parents  that 
he  was  born  blind,  as  little  right  have  you  to  con- 
clude that  a  pound- note,  which  came  to  you  from 
an  unknown  hand  through  the  Post-office,  at  the 
moment  when  you  were  at  the  point  of  need  for 
it,  came  to  you  by  special  Divine  interposition 
because  you  had  that  morning  poured  forth  a 
particularly  fervent  prayer.  All  these  **  interpo- 
sitions "  and  "  interferences  "  are  the  product  of  a 
devout  conceit,  that  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
less  in  the  way  of  religion  than  such  a  constant 
display  of  petty  preferences  as  a  spoiled  child 
receives  from  a  partial  mamma.  The  idea  of  a 
God  constantly  interfering  in  answer  to  prayer,  or 
otherwise,  is  one  of  the  most  anthropomorphic  of 
all  theological  conceptions.  God  cannot  be  said 
to  **  interfere,"  with  the  general  order  of  Provi- 
dence, any  more  than  the  steam  can  be  said  to  in- 
terfere with  the  regular  motions  of  the  steam- 
engine.  He  who  is  everywhere  the  spring  of  all 
motion,  and  the  source  of  all  vital  energy,  cannot 
be  supposed  to  be  called  out  of  his  way  to  answer 
any  invocator's  particular  need.  If  the  wind  is 
blowing  west,  it  blows  west  from  a  Divine  neces- 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  211 

sity  in  the  harmonious  currents  of  the  atmosphere, 
which  can  no  more  be  changed  by  your  wanting  it 
to  blow  east,  than  Niagara  can  stop  its  swell 
because  you  have  thoughtlessly  cast  your  shallop 
upon  its  sweep.  Those  who  wish  to  pray  with  a 
reasonable  piety,  to  which  no  atheism  can  object, 
will  find  in  the  Lord's  prayer,  or  in  the  prayer  of 
Socrates,  a  model  which  cannot  be  excelled  :  but 
rewards  and  punishments  for  violated  law  lie 
deeply  seated  in  the  general  system  of  the  All- 
wise  government,  and  will  not  be  evoked  by  any 
special  application  even  of  the  most  pious.  For 
theology  of  this  puerile  description.  Homer  must 
be  quoted  as  an  authority,  not  Paul.  The  Chris- 
tian Jove  neither  launches  special  thunderbolts 
to  strike  the  heads  of  special  offenders,  nor  pre- 
pares sugar-plums  for  the  good  boys  and  girls 
of  the  grand  State  church  or  the  unrecognised 
conventicle. 

Let  no  man  imagine  we  are  unwarrantably  hard 
on  the  religious  world,  when  we  mention  these 
things.  The  religious  world  is  just  as  liable  as  any 
other  world  to  the  general  human  weakness  of 
sliding  into  a  caricature  of  itself,  and  presenting 
these  distorted  features  for  general  admiration  as  a 
correct  Hkeness.     Besides,  it  is  of  the  very  nature 


212    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

of  a  high  ideal  to  be  unattainable,  to  admit  only  of 
approximation ;  and  one  of  the  highest  compli- 
ments that  can  be  paid  to  Christianity  is  that,  when 
purely  presented,  it  is  apt  to  seem  a  great  deal  too 
good  for  the  creatures  to  whom  it  is  addressed. 
And,  so  far  as  our  present  purpose  is  concerned, 
looking  upon  the  profession  of  atheism,  even  in 
the  modified  form  of  agnosticism,  as  a  monstrosity 
in.  the  moral  history  of  the  world,  explicable  only 
on  the  theory  of  reaction  or  revulsion  from  certain 
abusive  and  offensive  aspects  of  Christianity  in 
these  times,  we  cannot  exonerate  ourselves  from 
the  necessary  work  of  marshalling  forth  these 
abuses  and  offences  in  all  their  nakedness.  A  few 
still  remain,  not  of  a  doctrinal,  but  of  an  ethical, 
social,  or  aesthetical  character,  which  we  shall  now 
shortly  allude  to.  First  there  comes  asceticism 
and  monkery — a  very  sad  and  lamentable  chapter 
in  the  history  of  the  Church,  and  which,  in  so  far 
as  it  has  triumphed,  completely  wipes  out  the 
grand  practical  distinction  between  Christianity 
and  Buddhism.  Whatever  we  know  not  about 
Buddha,  one  thing  certainly  we  do  know,  that  he 
commenced  with  being  a  hcentious  person  and  a 
voluptuary,  and  ended  in  the  character  of  a  mendi- 
cant monk ;  and  succeeded — as  indeed  Brahman- 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  213 

ism  did  in  a  considerable  measure  before  him — in 
impressing  this  ridiculous  type  of  an  unnatural  and 
unsocial  sanctity  as  a  model  for  human  admiration 
from  the  Ganges  to  the  Amoor.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  a  religion  which  declares  war  against  the 
fundamental  instincts  of  human  nature  must 
always  fail,  equally  on  the  one  side  in  regulating 
the  passions  of  the  thoughtless  many,  and  on  the 
other  in  commanding  the  suffrages  of  the  thought- 
ful few.  The  principle  of  all  asceticism  is  not  to 
regulate,  but  to  extirpate  ;  but,  though  the  masses 
may  stare  at  the  man  who  does  violence  to  all  his 
natural  instincts,  under  the  name  of  piety,  and 
rends  his  flesh  to  prove  the  strength  of  his  will, 
they  will  never  be  induced  to  follow  his  example  ; 
and  as  for  the  few  persons  who  give  themselves  up 
to  speculation  on  the  principles  of  human  action 
whom  the  world  calls  philosophers,  whatever  name 
they  may  bear,  like  the  poets  they  have  only  one 
test  by  which  they  measure  all  things — NATURE. 
If  it  be  contrary  to  man's  nature  that  he  should  live 
like  a  mere  pig,  or  a  tiger,  or  any  form  of  brute 
beast,  it  is  equally  contrary  to  his  nature  not  to 
like  a  good  dinner,  and  to  shrink  from  a  glass  of 
good  wine.  Philosophy  recognises  no  virtue  in 
walking  with  peas  in  a  man's  shoes,  or  quarrelling 


214   T^^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

with  the  butter  on  a  man's  toast.  It  is  perfectly 
true  that  in  all  enjoyment,  whether  of  wine  or  of 
butter-toast,  there  is  a  certain  element  of  danger ; 
the  too  much  is  always  at  hand,  and  chiefly  in  the 
very  acme  of  pleasant  excitement,  to  turn  the  sub- 
lime of  enjoyment  into  the  ridiculous  or  the  low. 
In  this  view  there  is  always  safety  in  abstinence  ; 
but  there  is  also  weakness — weakness,  and  cow- 
ardice, and  meagreness  and  poverty  of  spirit,  and 
an  offence  against  nature  so  gross,  that  the  very 
aspect  of  it  is  enough  to  tempt  a  man  to  rush  into 
its  opposite.  I,  for  one,  can  never  look  upon  these 
sallow  saints  perusing  skulls,  and  gazing  up  into 
Heaven  through  the  narrow  window-slits  of  a  dark 
cell,  which  you  see  on  the  walls  of  all  our  great 
picture-galleries,  without  feeling  myself  driven  for 
relief  into  a  heathenish  sympathy  with  a  brawny 
Hercules,  a  blooming  Venus,  or  a  rubicund 
Dionysus.  Always  and  everywhere  enjoyment 
is  natural ;  abstinence,  self-mortification,  and  self- 
crucifixion  in  every  shape  (except  by  way  of 
training  for  some  special  purpose,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Greek  athletes),  abnormal,  monstrous,  inhu- 
man, and  absurd.  And  yet  in  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints,  and  elsewhere,  this  purely  negative,  pedan- 
tic, and  ridiculous  sort  of  virtue  is  set  up  before 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  215 

the  Church  to  admire,  as  the  ideal  of  the  highest 
excellence  to  which  human  nature  can  attain.  As 
reasonably  might  a  flower  avoid  the  sun  for  fear 
of  being  burnt  up,  as  a  man  forswear  enjoyment 
for  fear  of  falling  into  vice.  A  certain  amount  of 
peril  is  the  price  which  we  pay  for  all  pleasure ;  and 
whoso  for  fear  of  the  peril  refuses  the  pleasure, 
must  sit  at  a  smoky  fireside,  or  in  a  dank  cell,  and 
rot  his  life  away  in  a  spiritual  or  a  carnal  mouldi- 
ness — in  either  case  stupidly. 

We  have  neither  monks  nor  nuns  in  Great 
Britain  just  now,  I  believe,  of  the  stupid  kind 
which  Buddha  in  the  East,  and  the  Romanists  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  perched  upon  the  platform  of  a 
false  ideal.  Our  nuns  are  mere  sisters  of  charity, 
who  devote  themselves  to  deeds  of  active  benevo- 
lence, and  wear  a  certain  funereal  dress  more  by  the 
way  of  protection  against  rude  insult  than  from  any 
worship  of  death,  or  perverse  conceit  of  unnatural 
mortification.  To  such  a  withdrawal  from  the  bus- 
tle and  whirl  of  common  life  into  a  quiet  corner  for 
a  special  rational  purpose  there  can  be  no  objec- 
tion ;  only  let  not  such  persons  imagine  that  they 
are  more  holy  than  their  secular  sisters,  who  allow 
themselves  to  browse  at  large  on  the  broad  com- 
mon of  the  world  without  any  artificial  restrictions. 


2i6    The  Natural  Histoi'y  of  Atheisui. 

Perhaps  they  are  more  pure  and  more  philanthro- 
pic :  perhaps  they  are  only  more  narrow  and  more 
meagre.  But  in  some  parts  of  these  islands,  es- 
pecially the  north-west  of  Scotland,  we  have  a 
school  of  sombre  religionists  and  black  prophets, 
who,  though  not  professedly  monks,  make  their 
boast  of  a  certain  artificial  gloomy  piety  and 
morose  morality,  which  leads  by  direct  revulsion 
into  sensuality,  irreligion,  and  practical  atheism. 
Our  newspaper  columns  and  anecdote-books  are 
full  of  strange  stories  about  ministers  and  men  in- 
fected with  this  dismal  superstition.  Mr.  Buckle, 
who,  for  some  time,  passed  for  a  great  philoso- 
pher, was  of  opinion  that  this  lowering  Calvinism 
of  the  north  was  the  natural  product  of  the  savage 
bens  of  West  Ross-shire,  and  the  frowning  crags 
of  Glencoe  :  a  theory  unfortunately  rendered  sus- 
picious by  the  fact  that  Calvinism  was  born  in 
Picardy,  not  in  Poolewe  or  Ballachulish,  and  that 
the  original  Calvin  in  Geneva  was  as  stern  a  dis- 
ciplinarian, and  as  far  removed  from  Luther's  idea 
of  the  model  man  **  who  loves  wine,  women,  and 
song,"  as  any  Macdonald  or  Mcintosh  beneath  the 
Grampians.  But  whatever  the  cause  may  be,  the 
fact  undoubtedly  remains.  There  is  a  class  of 
Christian  ministers  in  the  Scottish  Highlands,  spe^- 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  217 

dally  amongst  the  clergy  of  the  Free  Church,  who 
declare  openly  that  dancing,  and  singing,  and 
cards,  and  theatres  are  deadly  sins,  and  whosoever 
has  anything  to  do  with  such  amusements  must  be 
looked  upon  as  the  servant  of  the  devil,  and  in  dan- 
ger of  everlasting  damnation.  It  would  appear  as 
if  these  persons  wished  to  change  all  the  brightness 
of  the  moral  world  into  the  similitude  of  their  own 
bleak  moors  and  black  bogs,  with  no  sound  but  the 
melancholy  cry  of  the  pewit,  the  whistling  of  the 
cold  wind,  or  the  drizzle  of  the  persistent  rain.  Or 
it  might  perhaps  seem  that  they  wished  to  hold  in 
their  own  hands  a  despotic  monopoly  of  all  vital 
utterances  and  all  moral  manifestations  of  the  hu- 
man creature  :  no  music,  but  the  long-drawn  drone 
of  their  melancholy  psalm-tunes  ;  no  meetings,  but 
prayer-meetings  ;  no  eloquence,  but  the  alternate 
whine  and  screech  of  their  own  sepulchral  sermons. 
One  must  speak  not  mincingly  about  these  gospel- 
lers, because  they  unquestionably  do  as  much  as  hu- 
man beings  can  do  to  drive  all  healthy-minded  per- 
sons out  of  the  bosom  of  the  Church  and  into  the 
bosom  of  Mr.  Atkinson  and  Miss  Martineau,  and 
any  kindly  devotees  of  the  agnostic  persuasion 
who  may  spread  their  arms  to  receive  them.  The 
airs  of  solemn  authority  assumed  by  these  persons 


2i8   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

in  remote  districts  where  they  have  no  one  to  con- 
tradict them,  are  almost  incredible.  One  of  them, 
I  have  been  informed,  in  a  district  of  the  wide 
county  of  Inverness,  wishing  to  abolish  merry 
meetings  and  dances  of  every  kind  in  his  parish, 
and  knowing  that  a  fiddle  or  some  musical  instru- 
ment was  a  necessary  adjunct  of  such  assemblies, 
took  occasion  one  day,  when  her  husband,  who 
was  a  fiddler,  happened  to  be  absent,  to  call  on  a 
woman  of  his  congregation,  in  order  to  give  her  a 
serious  remonstrance  on  the  grave  sin  of  fiddling 
at  balls  and  weddings.  The  woman  confessed 
that  it  was  not  exactly  the  most  saintly  occupa- 
tion, but  she  did  not  see  there  was  any  harm  in  it ; 
that  even  King  David,  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  danced  before  the  Lord,  which  he  could  not 
have  done  without  a  fiddle,  or  some  such  instru- 
ment ;  and  besides  that,  her  husband  might  often 
earn  a  pound  in  the  half  year  by  his  fiddling, 
which  could  not  be  well  wanted  when  the  rent  was 
to  be  paid.  *^  Well,"  said  the  minister,  *'  here's  a 
pound  for  you,  and  give  me  the  fiddle."  The 
woman  obeyed :  she  brought  down  the  fiddle  and 
pocketed  the  pound,  and  the  reverend  gentleman 
forthwith  broke  the  back  of  the  instrument  with  a 
violent  bang  upon  the  table,  and  flung  the  wreck 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  219 

of  it  into  the  fire.  This  was  dramatic  enough  ;  but 
the  fiddle  was  not  yet  exterminated.  The  woman, 
true  to  her  descent  from  Eve,  had,  on  this  trying 
occasion,  encountered  the  clerical  bear  with  a 
touch  of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent.  She  had 
brought  down  an  old  obsolete  fiddle  from  the 
garret,  and  left  the  real  offender  unharmed  in  his 
case  ! 

There  is  one  special  point  in  which  Scottish 
Christianity  stands  on  its  point  of  honour,  and 
which,  of  course  also,  plays  a  prominent  part  in 
the  grave  religiosity  of  these  trans-Grampian 
Pharisees  ;  we  mean  the  observance  of  the  Sab- 
bath ;  an  observance  in  the  main  highly  com- 
mendable, and  to  be  looked  on  with  pride,  as  one 
of  those  fountains  from  which  Scotsmen  draw  that 
calm  strength  and  moral  seriousness  which  makes 
them  so  efficient  and  so  reliable  in  the  earnest 
work  of  the  world,  wherever  they  are  found.  But 
there  is  undeniably  a  superstitious  Judaical  and 
anti-Christian  element  in  the  notions  of  these 
Highland  ministers  about  the  sabbath,  which  must 
be  openly  condemned,  and  practically  contradict- 
ed on  all  occasions,  because  it  tends  to  make  reli- 
gion both  disagreeable  and  ridiculous.  We  have 
reason  to  believe  that  in  most  Highland  famihes 


2  20   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

no  minister's  daughter  would  venture  to  touch  the 
piano  on  Sunday,  even  to  play  psalm  tunes  :  and 
in  most  parts  of  Scotland,  very  few  clergymen 
have  courage  enough  to  show  themselves  outside 
of  their  garden  wall  on  that  day.  I  have  known 
the  case  of  a  landlady  in  a  civilised  town,  who 
dismissed  a  lodger  because  he  sung  hymns  to  the 
piano  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  gave  her  house  an 
ill-name.  A  religion  which  thus  commends  itself 
to  the  notice  of  the  world  by  the  unnatural  repres- 
sion of  healthy  emotion,  and  the  sympathetic  cul- 
ture of  a  stupid  seriousness,  need  not  be  surprised, 
if  in  the  biographies  of  not  a  few  notable  persons 
it  finds  itself  enumerated  among  the  agencies  that 
led  to  perilous  flirtations  with  various  kinds  of 
latitudinarianism,  and  then  clean  away  into  the 
hostile  ranks  of  No-Church. 

Two  points  of  ofl*ence  more,  and  we  have  done. 
England  has  seen,  in  these  latter  days,  in  the 
matter  of  sacerdotal  claims,  and  ceremonial  mum- 
meries, a  phenomenon  to  make  the  stars  blush. 
There  is,  and  can  be,  no  such  thing  as  a  priest- 
hood in  Christianity  :  the  Egyptians  had  a  power- 
ful hierarchy,  and  so  had  the  Jews ;  the  caste 
system  of  the  Brahmans  was  another  variety  of  the 
same  rigid  form  of  social  organization  ;  but  the 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  221 

character  of  Christianity  is  essentially  popular, 
personal,  and  democratic,  and  knows  nothing  of 
privileged  orders,  much  less  of  persons  with  thau- 
maturgic  virtue  in  their  right  hands,  and  a  magical 
power  in  their  touch.  This  is  a  phenomenon  that 
belongs  partly  to  the  vulgarest  phases  of  Heathen- 
ism, and  partly  is  a  stupid  importation  of  Judaism 
into  Christianity,  which  deprives  it  of  its  essentially 
humanitarian  character,  and  confounds  it  with  all 
that  is  most  puerile  and  trifling  in  the  practice  of 
the  lowest  superstitions.  In  Christianity  the  con- 
gregation is  the  Church  ;  the  people  are  the 
priests  ;  and  the  prayers  and  praises  of  the  saints 
are  the  incense.  St.  Peter  taught  this  distinctly  in 
a  public  letter  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  (  i  Pet. 
ii.  5),  but  his  successors  in  Rome  slid  rapidly  into 
a  total  forgetfulness  of  the  truth;  and  the  high- 
church  party  in  the  English  Church  at  the  present 
moment  seem  emulously  bent  on  showing  whether 
they  will  do  the  greater  insult  to  the  religion 
which  they  profess  by  the  insolence  of  their 
churchly  claims,  the  puerility  of  their  devotional 
services,  or  the  narrowness  of  their  human  sympa- 
thies. If  religion  is  to  consist  in  a  marshalled 
array  of  antic  observances,  postures,  genuflexions, 
bowings,  dresses  and  decorations,  and  all  sorts  of 


222    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

prescribed  externalities,  by  all  means  let  us  raise 
the  ancient  Greeks  from  the  dead,  to  help  us  at 
least  to  do  the  thing  naturally  and  gracefully. 
But  a  man  who  has  any  smack  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment must  know  how  very  far  this  curious  concern 
about  ecclesiastical  mumming  is  from  the  mind  of 
Christ,  and  from  the  soundness  of  apostolic  teach- 
ing. "  Let  all  things  be  done  decently  and  in 
order  !  "  is  the  wis^  precept  of  the  great  apostle, 
in  regard  to  the  external  arrangements  of  sacred 
worship  ;  but  to  make  a  conscience  of  any  mere 
outward  show  and  paraded  symbolism,  is  to  run 
right  in  the  teeth  of  the  great  text  which,  applied 
to  our  times,  simply  says,  that  in  Christ  Jesus 
there  is  neither  priest  nor  presbyter,  nor  High 
Church,  nor  Low  Church,  nor  attitudinarian,  nor 
latitudinarian,  but  a  new  creature. 

The  other  offence  with  which  we  conclude  this 
bill  of  indictment  against  Churches  and  Church- 
men, is  of  a  political  nature.  The  Churchman,  it 
was  written  long  ago  by  the  great  poetical  moral- 
ist, is  a  creature  "  fond  of  power."  Well,  he  has 
great  power  naturally  by  virtue  of  the  great  hu- 
man instinct  of  reverence  which  he  represents  ; 
and,  if  to  this  power,  which  belongs  to  his  spiritual 
office,    there   be  added   great   worldly   dignity,  a 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  223 

more  than  average  share  of  the  good  things  of  this 
Hfe,  and  perhaps  an  honoured  place  in  the  supreme 
counsel  of  the  nation,  in  all  this  there  is  nothing 
wrong,  or  rather  a  great  good,  if  a  society  be 
otherwise  well  managed  and  justly  balanced ; 
nevertheless,  as  things  go,  such  a  proud  position 
of  the  clergy  is  not  without  danger  to  the  Church, 
lest  it  should  become  worldly,  and  danger  to 
religion^  lest  it  should  become  identified  with 
odious  oligarchic  privilege  and  selfish  oligarchic 
exclusiveness.  The  democratic  atheist  is  a  species 
of  the  unlovely  genus  which  we  specified  above  ; 
and  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  that  where, 
as  in  England,  democracy  as  the  form  of  the  civil 
government  is  combined  with  sacerdotal  glorifica- 
tion among  the  clergy,  and  a  distinct  aristocratic 
type  in  Church  polity,  the  democratic  atheist  is  an 
animal  that  will  show  front  in  large  centres  of  civic 
life  pretty  confidently,  and  cast  his  volleys  of  un- 
gracious denial  into  the  sun's  face,  not  without 
observance.  This,  of  course,  is  not  meant  as  any 
argument  for  the  dis-estabhshment  of  any  of  the 
British  Churches  ;  it  is  merely  noticed  pathologi- 
cally as  helping  to  account  for  a  moral  disease, 
and  an  intellectual  perversion  more  widely  spread 
among  certain  secti'ons  of  the  working  classes  in 


224   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

our  large   towns   than   many  persons  are  apt  to 
imagine. 

It  remains  now,  in  order  to  bring  the  matter  to 
a  more  distinct  and  definite  bearing,  that  we  pre- 
sent the  atheism  or  agnosticism  of  the  present  day 
before  the  reader  in  the  words  of  its  own  advo- 
cates ;  that  we  may  see  how  far  their  opinions  are 
a  mere  illustration  of  the  vulgar  law  of  reaction  ; 
or  how  far  anything  like  a  substantial  reason, 
sound  logic,  or  subtle  sophistry  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  their  abnormal  speculations.  If  it  should  turn 
out,  on  coming  face  to  face  with  the  utterances  of 
those  negative  philosophers,  that  there  is  really 
nothing  more  in  what  they  urge  than  a  hasty  re- 
vulsion from  the  real  or  imaginary  aberrations  of 
the  received  orthodoxy,  it  will  be  at  once  a  great 
confirmation  to  sound  theism,  and  a  vindication  of 
human  reason  from  one  of  its  strangest  aberra- 
tions. The  folly  or  presumption  of  the  unreason- 
ably orthodox  will  appear  to  have  supplied  a  pro- 
vocation which  has  driven  the  reasonably  heterodox 
into  a  position  of  which  they  would  otherwise 
have  been  ashamed.  Protagoras — one  of  the  most 
notable  of  the  ancient  Greek  sophists  in  the  age 
of  Pericles — commenced  his  most  famous  book 
on    the   principles    of    human    knowledge,    quite 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  225 

in   the    spirit   of   our  modern   agnostics  in  these 
words  : 

"If  there  be  gods, 
Or  if  there  be  not,  overjumps  my  ken  : 
But  this  I  know — I  am  a  man,  and  take 
Of  things  that  be  the  measure  for  myself, 
And  things  that  be  not." 

Now,  if  this  most  reputable  of  the  sophists — for 
Plato  paints  him  in  the  most  favourable  colours — 
meant  by  this  famous  sentence  merely  that  he  did 
not  know  whether  Jove,  Athena,  and  Apollo,  as 
they  were  then  conceived  and  worshipped  by  the 
Greeks,  existed  or  not,  and  was  determined,  as  a 
practical  man,  not  to  care,  he  said  what  no  im- 
partial thinker  now  can  blame  him  for.  But  if  he 
meant  to  say  that  he  believed  in  no  self-existent 
Divine  power  underlying  these  names,  and  saw  no 
cause  for  supposing  the  existence  of  any  such 
power,  we  should  say  he  was  a  fool,  or  a  man  not 
to  be  dealt  with  reasonably,  as  not  perceiving  that 
a  world  everywhere  full  of  reasonable  construction 
could  be  supposed  to  come  into  existence,  or  to 
exist  for  ever,  without  a  reasonable  substratum. 
Exactly  so  with  our  modern  agnostics.  If  we  find 
that  by  the  general  term  atheism  or  agnosticism 
they  merely  mean  to  deny  certain  popular  concep- 
tions about  the  Supreme  Being,  which  they  cannot 


2  26    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

believe,  this  is  an  intelligible  position  :  they  may- 
be right  or  wrong  in  their  notions  ;  but  their  atti- 
tude is  not  unworthy  of  rational  beings,  and  will  be 
judged  of  more  or  less  leniently  by  the  impartial 
spectator,  according  to  the  greater  or  less  amount 
of  the  provocation  from  the  unreasonable  orthodox 
which  they  may  seem  to  have  received.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  find  them  flying  off  in  a  fit 
of  hasty  revulsion,  and,  from  the  prevalence  of 
what  they  believe  to  be,  and  what  may  actually  be, 
shallow,  perverse,  and  altogether  unworthy  notions 
about  the  Supreme  Being,  concluding,  at  a  jump, 
that  there  is  no  God,  we  can  only  pity  the  morbid 
sensibility  of  a  temper  which  had  the  power  to 
drive  reasonable  men  into  so  unreasonable  an  atti- 
tude. Let  us  hear,  therefore,  what  they  have  to 
say  for  themselves.  First,  Miss  Martineau — or 
rather,  her  father  in  atheism,  Mr.  Atkinson — and 
then  Professor  Tyndall ;  for  these  are  two  of  the 
most  respectable,  and  whom  the  more  coarse  and 
rabid  of  the  negative  faction  can  only  be  benefited 
by  accepting  as  their  representatives. 

MR.    ATKINSON, 

1.  "Instinct,    passion,   thought,    are   effects    of  organized    sub- 
stances."— Page  6. 

2.  '*  For  every  effect  there  is  a  sufftcient  cause ;  and  all  causes 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  227 

are  material  causes  influenced  by  surrounding  circumstances ; 
which  is  nothing  more  than  matter  being  influenced  by  matter." 
—Page  7. 

3.  ''"What  use  is  there  in  disputing  with  a  Mohammedan  about 
his  prophet,  or  his  harem  ?  or  with  the  Roman  Catholic  about  his 
saints  and  his  transubstantiation  ?  or  with  the  English  Protestant 
about  his  dull  formalism,  his  services,  and  his  worldly  pride,  and  vul- 
gar regard  for  wealth  ?  " — Page  lo. 

4.  "  Mind  is  the  product  of  the  brain  ;  it  is  the  manifestation  or 
expression  of  the  brain  in  action." — Page  17. 

5.  *'  Before  animal  existence  there  were  electric  currents  and 
aroma  from  vegetation,  and  solemn  music  from  winds  ;  then  sen- 
tience was  provided  ;  and  after  more  ages  consciousness  followed 
upon  sentience." — Page  26, 

6.  '*It  is  only  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  mind  and  the  law  of 
love,  and  exhibitions  of  goodness  and  mercy,  that  will  reform  the 
world.  Inferior  minds  will,  doubtless,  always  be  influenced  by 
rewards  and  punishments  ;  but  these  rewards  and  punishments  should 
be  of  a  more  wholesome  character,  and  not  such  as  brutalise,  and 
encourage  the  selfish  impulses.  Preaching  the  horrors  of  a  hell  and 
eternal  damnation  will  never  induce  reverence  for  higher  things,  or 
reform  the  world*." — Page  136. 

7.  **  We  must  profit  by  Bacon's  admonitions,  and  not  mix  up 
theology  with  science;  we  must  not  see  ourselves  reflected — see 
the  ghosts  of  ourselves  in  Nature,  and  imagine  we  recognise  design 
or  a  human  origin  of  things.  We  must  follow  our  great  master, 
Bacon,  and  make  a  stand  against  the  fallacy  of  natural  theology, 
and  that  exceedingly  weak  argument  of  Paley's  about  the  watch, 
which  only  places  the  difficulty  a  little  further  ofl",  and  confounds 
the  idea  of  creation  with  design  or  manufacture.  To  design  is 
human.  Men  design  by  following  the  laws  which  constitute 
Nature." — Page  139. 

8.  "  Ignorance  sees  Nature  in  parts,  personifies  effects,  and  takes 
them  for  causes.  It  creates  horrors  and  spectres,  and  then  startles 
at  its  own  creations.  Ignorance  imagines  gods  and  devils  in 
legions.  Knowledge  establishes  the  true  relations  of  things  in  a 
whole,    and   has  only  one  God ;     and    that   incomprehensible   and 


2  28    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

unknown,  and  cannot  admit  a  principle  of  Evil,  much  less  a 
personal  demon — an  embodiment  of  all  villainy ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, sees  good  in  evil,  and  the  w^orking  of  general  laws  for  the 
general  good ;  and  sees  no  more  sin  in  a  crooked  disposition  than 
in  a  crooked  stick  in  the  water,  or  in  a  hump-back,  or  a  squint. 
Ignorance  conceives  its  will  to  be  free  :  a  strange  arrogance,  if  it 
could  see  it.  Knowledge  recognises  universal  law,  and  that  nothing 
can  be  free  or  by  chance — no,  not  even  God  ;  but  that  God  is  the 
substance  of  law,  and  origin  of  all  things." — Page  141. 

9.  "There  is  a  trinity  in  unity  described  by  Bacon  which  seems 
to  ofifer  a  sound  commencement  of  philosophizing  :  matter,  form, 
and  the  principle  of  motion,  or  the  power  or  mind  of  Nature,  if 
such  expressions  be  preferred All  is  change — change  eter- 
nal. Motion  is  fundamental  to  the  constitution  of  Nature  ;  and  the 
forms  of  matter  and  the  condition  of  mind  (which  is  one  form  of 
the  properties  of  matter)  are  "all  passing  phenomena,  fleeting  and 
various  as  the  wind,  equally  determined  by  law,  bound  down  by 
the  adamantine  chain  of  necessity.  There  is  nothing  stable  but 
what  we  conceive  to  be  fundamental  to  all  these  forms  and 
changes,  but  which  is  beyond  sense-impressions.  We  assume  a 
something  and  a  principle  because  the  form  of  mind  requires  it,  as 
a  thing  essential,  though  unknown  ;  and  it  is  this  which  I,  wrongly 
enough,  perhaps,  termed  God." — Page  170. 

10.  "  Philosophy  finds  no  God  in  Nature  ;  no  personal  Being  or 
Creator,  nor  sees  the  want  of  any." — Page  173. 

11.  "If  men  will  make  a  fable  for  what  is  beyond  our  compre- 
hension, let  the  poetry  be  sublime  and  worthy  of  the  subject.  Let 
the  God  be  an  ideal  abstract  of  all  that  is  unimpassioned,  noble, 
and  elevating ;  and,  above  all,  let  it  be  a  mystery — not  a  thing 
carved  in  stone,  or  shaped  out  in  blood  and  bone ;  a  thing  of 
human  passion  and  imperfections,  fabricating  that  which  it  after- 
wards finds  imperfect,  and  repenting  of  having  made  it." — Page  174. 

12.  "In  Nature  there  can  be  no  favouritism  or  predestination, 
though  all  things  be  fated  as  being  according  to  law — law  which 
rules  impartially,  though  individuals  suffer  cruel  extremities  from 
necessity ;  all  evil,  however,  having  some  tendency  towards  univer- 
sal good,  as  manvure  and  decaying  matter  are  the  substances  essen- 


The  Alhezs7n  of  Reaction.  229 

tial  to  regeneration  and  the  golden  harvest.  But  men  fancy  that 
they  recognise  the  doings  of  a  mind  like  their  own  in  Natm-e, 
instead  of  perceiving  that  they  themselves  are  of  a  form  cast  from 
Nature,  and  a  response  to  the  surface  or  phenomenal  form  of  things 
without.  Thus  deluding  themselves,  they  wander  after  final  causes, 
and  by  an  inverted  reason  see  their  own  image  in  Nature,  and 
imagine  design  and  a  Designer — creation  and  a  Creator  ;  as  if  the 
laws  of  matter  were  not  fundamental,  and  sufficient  in  themselves, 
and  design  were  not  human,  and  simply  an  imitation  ;  or,  as  Bacon 
designates  it,  *a  memory  with  an  application.'  To  call  Nature's 
doings,  and  the  fitness  and  form  of  things,  design,  is  absurd.  Man 
designs;  nature  is." — Page  175. 

13.  "  What  can  be  more  noble  and  more  glorious  than  a  calm 
and  joyful  indifference  about  self  and  the  future,  in  merging  the 
individual  in  the  general  good,  the  general  good  in  universal 
Nature  ?  And  what  are  all  our  creeds  and  conventionalities  but 
empty  vanities,  a  false  show,  the  swaddling-clothes  of  children — 
the  crutches  on  which  decaying  age,  broken  down  by  false  stimu- 
lants, supports  itself?  " — Page  189. 

14.  "  He  is  taught  to  respect  this  morality  of  vengeance  and  of 
partiality ;  that  man  can  do  no  good  of  himself,  and  yet  has  a  free 
will ;  and  that  the  soul  or  life  can  be  separated  as  an  entity,  and 
be  independent  of  the  living  thing.  He  is  taught  that  few  are 
chosen  to  heaven,  but  the  greater  number  to  damnation  ;  and  this 
is  to  be  considered  a  most  consoling  doctrine.  And  while  men 
may  be  born  to  hell-fire,  they  are  instructed  to  love  God  with  all 
their  hearts,  and  to  forgive  one  another  to  the  seventy  times 
seven.  Stimulated  to  selfishness  by  the  idea  of  reward  and 
punishment,  they  are  required  to  be  unselfish,  and  urged  to  set 
their  hearts  on  high  things.  They  are  taught  to  believe  that  they 
could  not  have  existed  as  a  consequence  of  Nature,  and  as  Nature ; 
but  that  they  were  created  by  a  Being  resembling  themselves,  who 
is  at  the  same  time  incomprehensible  ;  that  all  nature  is  a  fabric 
made  out  of  nothing ;  but  that  this  wondrous  Being — the  first 
cause,  is  himself  without  a  cause  or  beginning.  They  are  to 
consider  it  necessary  that  man  should  have  a  maker,  but  that  the 
demand  of  causality  is  to  rest  there." — Page  204. 


230   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

15.  *'From  the  recognition  of  universal  law,  we  shall  develop 
a  universal  love.  We  shall  see  that  no  man  can  be  a  friend  to  us 
who  is  not  a  friend  to  all.  We  shall  learn  that  dirt  is  beauty 
unformed,  and  that  evil  is  undeveloped  good. ' ' — Page  209. 

16.  "  Men  sing  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  God,  seeing  in  Him 
a  jealous  man,  the  wretched  image  of  their  own  miserable  selves." 

17.  "  Though  man  cannot  make  the  smallest  worm  or  particle  of 
dust,  he  imagines  a  Creator  or  Cause  to  be  the  same  vain,  incom- 
petent animal  as  himself." — Page  227. 

18.  "Fitness  in  Nature  is  no  evidence  of  design.  That  the 
lungs  are  fitted  for  breathing,  and  the  eye  for  seeing,  is  no  more 
evidence  of  design  than  that  the  seal  is  fitted  to  the  impression,  or 
that  two  halves  make  the  whole." — Page  228. 

19.  *'  He  who  does  not  suppose  a  personal  God  or  Lord  for  a 
future,  may,  nevertheless,  be  most  unselfish  and  deeply  religious — 
so  religious,  that  he  shrinks  from  all  the  forms  of  worship,  because 
he  sees  in  them  all  but  forms  of  worship,  and  forms  of  fancy,  and 
not  the  spirit  and  the  image  of  truth.  There  are  thousands  upon 
thousands  who  have  no  clear  knowledge  on  any  one  question  rela- 
tmg  to  their  religion,  and  yet  are  most  proud  in  declaring  them- 
selves Christians,  although  it  be  not  certain  that  they  possess  any 
one  Christian  self-denying  virtue, 

*'  Were  Christ  to  appear  among  such  persons,  he  would  not  be 
recognised  ;  nor  would  he  recognise  them  as  Christians.  Saying, 
*  I  am  a  Christian,'  and  crying,  *  Lord  !  Lord  ! '  will  not  open  the 
gate  of  heaven  to  any  man ;  and  those  who  would  jostle  in  before 
their  neighbours  shall  be  the  last  to  enter  and  the  least  in  heaven, 
— in  the  heaven  of  a  truly  virtuous  and  loving  heart.  I  think  a 
man  may  be  so  religious  as  to  be  quite  shocked  with  all  notions  of 
prayer  and  all  familiar  intercourse  with  deity  whatsoever.  We 
must  pause  in  wonder  before  the  great  mystery  of  Nature,  the 
hidden  truth  and  the  cause,  and  learn  that  knowledge  is  power,  and 
knowledge  is  wisdom,  and  wisdom  and  power  are  in  obedience  ; 
for,  by  yielding  to  this  law,  the  law  is  fulfilled,  and  the  works  are 
accomplished.  Christ  lived  and  died  for  the  good  of  mankind  ; 
Socrates  lived  and  died  for  the  good  of  mankind  ;    and  so  ought 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  231 

we  all  to  live  and  die  for  the  good  of  mankind  ;  and  only  by- 
forgetting  self  shall  we  elevate  and  ennoble  life.  I  would  not  ac- 
cept of. heaven  if  I  thought  that  others  were  to  go  to  hell." — 
Page  229. 

20.  "  Christian  morals  are  considered  perfect ;  but  they  will  re- 
quire much  weeding  and  developing  before  they  can  be  accepted 
by  high  and  philosophic  minds— by  the  best  and  most  enlightened 
minds  of  the  present  day.  And  is  there  no  place  for  man's  faith 
when  he  has  ceased  the  worship  of  idols  ?  It  is  the  idlest  folly  to 
suppose  that  the  idea  of  Necessity  would  let  men  loose  among  their 
evil  passions.  But,  that  we  require  something  to  reverence  and 
elevate  our  thoughts  towards,  is  true :  knowledge  gives  us  a  more 
elevated  poetry,  gives  us  the  chart  and  laws  of  mind  to  guide  us, 
and  will  exhibit  to  us  higher  objects  for  reverence.  Is  it  nothing 
to  have  faith  in  Nature ;  to  have  faith  in  knowledge,  and  in  good- 
ness, which  is  the  fruit  of  knowledge  ?  Is  it  nothing  to  have  faith 
in  love  ?  Is  it  nothing  to  regard  Nature  in  all  her  forms  with  pro- 
found reverence  ?  to  love  truth  and  worship  goodness,  and  find  no 
place  for  contempt  of  any  living  thing  or  condition  of  matter  ? 
Trained  in  the  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  mind,  to  find  it  impossible 
to  take  offence ;  what  a  soothing  influence  !  What  a  blessing  this 
one  circumstance  !  What  a  foundation  for  virtue  and  generosity  ! 
and  for  peace  of  mind  !  Is  it  nothing  to  cast  away  ambition  ?  to 
desire  excellence  rather  than  to  excel  ?  to  feel  a  noble  contentment 
in  reflecting  that  you  are  a  part  of  Nature — a  form  of  the  eternal  ? 
Is  there  nothing  in  that  faith  which  seeks  for  happiness  cut  of  self 
in  the  happiness  of  others,  and  the  glories  of  N  ture — content  that 
in  death  the  lease  of  personality  shall  pass  away,  and  that  you 
shall  be  as  you  were  before  you  were — in  a  sleep  for  evermore  ?  "- — 
Page  230. 

21.  *'  I  am  far  from  being  an  atheist,  as  resting  on  second 
causes.  As  well  might  we,  resting  on  this  earth,  deny  that  there 
is  any  depth  beneath,  or,  living  in  time,  deny  eternity.  I  do  not 
say,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  God  :  but  that  it  is  extravagant  and 
irreverent  to  imagine  that  cause  a  Person.  All  we  know  is  phe- 
nomena ;  and  that  the  fundamental  cause  is  wholly  beyond  our 
conception.     In   this  I  do  not  suspend  my  judgment ;  but  rather 


232    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

assert  plainly  that  of  the  motive  power  or  principle  of  things  we 
know  absolutely  nothing,  and  can  know  nothing  :  that  no  form  of 
words  could  convey  any  knowledge  of  it ;  and  that  no  form  of 
thought  could  imagine  that  which  is  wholly  aside  of  Nature  (as 
Nature  is  to  us),  and  of  the  nature  of  the  mind,  and,  as  it  were, 
behind  the  understanding.  A  '  cause  of  causes '  is  an  unfathomable 
mystery.  Phenomena  necessarily  have  a  certain  form  and  order 
which  we  term  la-v.  The  most  fundamental  and  general  law  is 
what  Bacon  terms  Forms.  I  cannot  believe  in  a  manufacturing 
God,  as  implied  in  the  idea  of  a  Creator  and  a  creation  ;  nor  can  I 
believe  in  any  beginning  or  end  to  the  operations  of  Nature.  The 
cause  in  Nature  or  of  Nature  is  eternal  and  immutable.  The  earth 
and  stars  may  pass  away  into  other  forms ;  but  the  law  is  eternal 
— man,  animals,  plants,  stones  are  consequently  in  Nature.  The 
mind  of  man,  the  instincts  of  animals,  the  sympathies  (so  to  speak) 
of  plants,  and  the  properties  of  stones,  are  results  of  material 
development  ;  that  development  itself  being  a  result  of  the  prop- 
erties of  matter,  and  the  inherent  cause  or  principle  which  is  the 
basis  of  matter.  If  to  have  this  conception  of  things  is  to  be  an 
atheist,  then  am  I  an  atheist.  If  to  renounce  all  idolatry,  and 
to  repose  upon  the  deep  and  solemn  conviction  of  an  eternal  and 
necessary  cause — such  a  Cause  as  that,  with  our  faculties,  we  could 
not  know,  or,  as  it  is  expressed,  '  could  not  see  and  live  ' — if  this 
be  atheism  or  materialism,  be  it  so.  I  care  not  about  terms." — 
Page  240. 

22.  '*  What  is  mind,  but  an  evolved  condition  or  form  of  the 
powers  of  Nature,  like  light,  heat,  magnetism  ?  What  are  the  in- 
stincts of  animals  and  the  mind  of  man  but  a  result  of  chemical 
action  or  material  processes  ?" — Page  257. 

23.  **  Perhaps  in  the  end  it  may  be  seen  that  some  of  those 
that  are  called  Materialists  are  the  most  spiritual  in  their  notions : 
more  spiritual,  at  least,  than  those  who  talk  of  gross  materialism, 
and  at  the  same  time  invoke  their  material  God,  who  sits  upon  a 
throne ;  who  talk  disparagingly  of  human  affections,  and  human 
wisdom,  and  poor  human  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  fashion 
their  God  in  their  likeness." — Page  259. 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  233 


MISS  MARTINEAU. 

24,  "  When  men  are  driven  out  of  their  grosser  superstitions  by 
the  evidence  of  law,  which  are  everywhere  around  them,  they 
still  cling  to  the  baseless  notion  of  a  single  conscious  Being  outside 
of  Nature,  himself  unaccounted  for,  and  not  himself  accounting  for 
Nature."— P^^^  218. 

25,  *'  When  we  have  finally  dismissed  all  notion  of  subjection 
to  a  superior  lawless  Will — all  the  perplexing  notions  about  sin 
and  responsibility,  and  arbitrary  reward  and  punishment — and 
stand  free  to  see  where  we  are,  and  to  study  our  own  nature,  and 
recognise  our  own  conditions — the  relief  is  like  that  of  coming 
out  of  a  cave  full  of  painted  shadows  under  the  free  sky,  with 
the  earth  open  round  about  us  to  the  horizon.  What  a  new 
perception  we  obtain  of  'the  beauty  of  holiness' — the  loveliness 
of  a  healthful  moral  condition — accordant  with  the  laws  of  Nature, 
and  not  with  the  requisitions  of  theology  !  What  a  sense  of  rever- 
ence awakens  in  us  when,  dismissing  the  image  of  a  Creator  hiing- 
ing  the  universe  out  of  nothing,  we  clearly  perceive  that  the  very 
conception  of  origin  is  too  great  for  us,  and  that  deeper  and 
deeper  down  in  the  abysses  of  time,  further  and  further  away  in 
the  vistas  of  the  ages,  all  was  still  what  we  see  it  now — a  system 
of  ever-working  forces,  producing  forms  uniform  in  certain  lines  and 
largely  various  in  the  whole,  and  all  under  the  operation  of  immu- 
table Law  !  " — Page  219. 

26,  **  I  am  convinced  that  the  true  moral  life  is  found  in  going 
out  of  ourselves." — Page  222. 

We  have  presented  these  extracts  at  consider- 
able length  from  a  conviction  that  no  other  method 
could  be  so  effectual  in  showing  the  emptiness, 
absurdity,  and  self- contradictory  nature  of  all  ar- 
guments that  can  be  advanced  in  favour  of  the 
monstrous  doctrine  of  atheism.     Part  of  the  affair 


234    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

is  a  mere  logomachy  arising  from  a  strange  use  of 
words ;  another  part  is  an  impatient  recalcitration 
against  certain  doctrines  of  the  received  theology 
of  the  Christian  Churches,  or  of  the  theology  of 
certain  ignorant  and  foolish  vain  talkers  in  Chris- 
tian pulpits  and  books  of  Christian  devotion  ;  a 
third  part  is  an  exaggeration  of  the  vices  of  Chris- 
tians, and  a  glorification  of  the  virtues  of  atheists  ; 
and  the  rest  of  it  is  a  conglomeration  of  misunder- 
standings and  cross-purposes  which  resists  all 
attempt  at  being  brought  within  the  pale  of  a 
reasonable  logic.  Let  us  take  it  with  all  briefness 
in  detail. 

Remarks. 

Nos.  I,  2,  4,  5,  22.  To  bring  any  sense  out  of 
these  propositions  we  shall  require  a  new  defi- 
nition of  MATTER.  If  matter  is  made  to  include 
motion,  both  secondary  motions  and  that  primary 
source  of  all  energy  *'  in  whom  we  hve,  and  MOVE, 
and  have  our  being,"  then  of  course  we  may  say  with 
all  truth  that  everything  in  the  world  is  only  matter 
influencing  matter.  But  it  would  be  equally  true 
to  adopt  Spinoza's  language  and  to  say  that  every- 
thing in  the  world  is  only  God  influencing  God. 
But  what  sense  is  there  in  inverting  the  common 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  235 

acceptation  of  known  terms,  and  then  tricking  out 
a  philosophy  from  such  perversion  of  language  ? 
It  was  in  this  way  that  Bentham  got  himself  a  cer- 
tain temporary  reputation  as  a  moralist,  by  con- 
founding the  good  with  the  pleasurable.*  There 
can  be  no  speculative  error,  though  unquestion- 
ably a  most  uncalled-for  amount  of  practical  con- 
fusion, in  substituting  the  word  MATTER  for  God, 
provided  we  import  into  our  idea  of  matter  all 
those  transcendental  virtues,  energies,  and  func- 
tions which  the  theist  recognises  as  inherent  in  the 
great  First  Cause.  But  why  this  juggle  ?  Far 
more  reasonable  were  it  to  deny  the  existence  of 
matter  altogether,  than  to  attribute  to  it  qualities 
plainly  inconsistent  with  its  fundamental  concep- 
tions. 

When  it  is  said  that  '*  the  mind  is  the  product 
of  the  brain,"  this  is  just  as  true  as  to  say  that  the 
horse  is  the  product  of  the  cart.  No  doubt  brain 
and  thought  are  indissolubly  bound  together — as 
we  might  conceive  horse  and  cart  to  be — but  as 
both  mind  and  brain  are  products  of  the  inherent 
self-energizing,  self-plastic  Mind  of  the  universe, 

*  That  Bentham's  ethical  system  is  utterly  worthless,  was  after- 
wards confessed  by  his  principal  disciple.  See  J.  S.  Mill's  "  Essay 
on  Bentham." 


2^6    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

which  we  call  God,  it  is  quite  unwarranted  to  call 
the  one  the  product  of  the  other.  They  are  both 
products  of  God  ;  or,  if  you  dislike  the  word  pro- 
ducts, say  manifestations,  emanations,  or  evolu- 
tions. Behind  all  such  phrases  God  lies  as  neces- 
sarily as  the  sun  behind  the  radiance  which  he 
sheds. 

To  the  doctrine  of  EVOLUTION  enunciated  in 
No.  5  there  can  be  no  objection,  provided  always 
that  we  do  not  assert  the  absurdity  that  something 
is  evolved  out  of  nothing,  reason  out  of  unreason, 
order  out  of  confusion,  light  out  of  darkness,  fire 
out  of  frost,  or  the  positive  in  any  shape  out  of 
mere  blind  negations.  In  all  such  cases  only 
the  most  superficial  will  confound  a  historical 
sequence,  or  an  accidental  priority,  with  a  meta- 
physical priority,  or  a  Cause. 

No.  3.  The  faults  and  foUies  of  professing  Chris- 
tians have  no  more  logically  to  do  with  Christi- 
anity than  the  errors  made  by  schoolboys  in  sum- 
ming up  an  arithmetical  column  with  the  principles 
of  the  science  of  number. 

In  No.  6  there,  is  a  confusion  between  the  con- 
ferring of  rewards  and  acting  for  the  sake  of  ob- 
taining rewards.  The  interpolation  of  the  selfish 
motive  of  course  corrupts  the  purity  of  the  action; 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  237 

but  it  is  not  therefore  wrong  to  reward  those  who, 
from  unselfish  regards,  have  sacrificed  themselves 
for  the  good  of  the  community. 

No.  7.  Bacon  is  quite  right  when  he  tells  us  not 
to  mix  up  theology  with  science  ;  but  he  would  be 
altogether  wrong,  if  he  were  to  tell  us  not  to  mix 
up  theology  with  philosophy.  Science  works  in  a 
narrow  range,  and  has  no  function  to  meddle  with 
philosophical  or  theological  questions  at  all.  The 
question  of  design  is  a  philosophical  question,  and 
the  moment  a  scientific  man  either  asserts  it  or 
denies  it,  he  walks  out  of  his  proper  sphere,  and 
is,  or  attempts  to  be,  a  philosopher.  As  for  Dr. 
Paley,  and  his  simile  of  the  watch,  no  writer  that  I 
know  has  been  more  grossly  abused  and  made  to 
stand  a  more  unreasonable  test  in  the  literal  inter- 
pretation of  his  words.  Dr.  Paley — the  genius  of 
common-sense,  as  he  has  been  well  called — did  not 
say,  and  did  not  in  the  remotest  degree  mean  to 
insinuate,  that  the  world  is  a  watch,  or  a  manufac- 
ture in  any  shape.  He  merely  said  that  as  we  see 
and  acknowledge  design,  plan,  purpose,  and  cal- 
culation in  the  machinery  of  a  watch,  so,  unless 
we  are  altogether  ignorant  and  purposely  perverse, 
we  must  acknowledge  design,  plan,  calculation, 
purpose,  in  the  structure  of  the  human  body,  and 


238   The  Natter  at  History  of  Atheism, 

in  other  organisms  of  Nature ;  and  this  doctrine, 
expounded  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago  by- 
Socrates,  the  wisest  of  the  Greeks,  and  besung  by 
David,  the  noblest  of  the  Hebrew  lyrists,  is  so 
strikingly  and  pervadingly  true  that  no  subtleties 
and  sophistries  and  wretched  verbal  juggleries  of  a 
purely  negative  physical  science  can  hope  to  over- 
turn it.  We  do  not  require  the  atheists  or  agnos- 
tics to  tell  us  that  Nature  is  a  growth,  not  a  manu- 
facture ;  that  God  is  not  a  mechanic,  and  so  forth  ; 
we  know  this  perfectly  well — we  happen  to  have 
been  taught,  as  Christians,  that  God  is  a  Spirit, 
and  a  spirit  in  whom  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being  ;  but  a  growth,  to  rise  into  any  con- 
gruous proportions,  requires  design,  as  well  as  a 
box,  or  a  house,  or  any  piece  of  mechanical  com- 
pagination.  *'Man  designs^  Nature  /^,"  says  Mr. 
Atkinson.  This  is  an  antithesis  merely  in  words, 
which  to  a  thinking  mind  conveys  no  meaning. 
The  writer  should  have  said,  Man  MAKES  ;  Nature 
IS  :  though,  indeed,  in  the  proper  sense,  man  does 
not  even  make ;  he  only  uses  what  is.  But 
neither  in  the  making,  nor  the  using,  nor  the 
being,  is  there  the  slightest  reason  for  the  exclu- 
sion of  design.  Design  belongs,  and  must  belong, 
to  all  the  three  ;  otherwise  every  human  workshop 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  ,        239 

would  become  a  lumber-room  of  incoherent  fracf- 
ments,  and  instead  of  a  world  everywhere  full  of 
reasonable  law,  we  should  have  a  lawless  chaos 
and  a  maundering  Bedlam.  The  prejudice  against 
design  in  the  minds  of  a  certain  class  of  scientific 
men  arises  from  two  causes — i.  Because  mere 
science  does  not  mount  up  into  the  region  of  final 
causes,  and  therefore  takes  upon  itself  to  deny 
generally  what,  for  its  own  special  purposes,  it 
does  not  require  ;  2.  Because  some  foolish  theolo- 
gians have  interpreted  a  design  into  certain  parts 
of  the  Divine  workmanship,  which  a  little  knowl- 
edge of  the  scheme  of  Nature  proved  to  be  alto- 
gether inadequate ;  and  3.  Because  the  design 
which  we  admire  in  the  scheme  of  Nature  is  part 
of  a  plan  comprehending  a  vast  whole,  not  to  be 
interpreted  by  the  hasty  inspection  of  a  part ;  and 
those  who  expatiate  largely  on  the  final  cause  of 
the  part  as  if  it  were  the  whole,  and  look  at  this 
part  also  only  in  the  light  of  human  convenience 
and  comfort,  are  justly  chargeable  with  ignorance 
and  presumption.  God  certainly  does  not  do  all 
that  he  does  in  this  vast  and  complex  universe 
merely  for  your  pleasure  or  mine  ;  nor  because 
you  and  I  can  make  profitable  application  of  any- 
thing in  the  world  does  it  logically  follow  that  this 


240   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

use  was  in  every  case  an  end,  and  not  rather  an 
accident  of  their  existence  ;  but  unquestionably  he 
is  a  most  blind  person  who  does  not  see,  and 
a  most  ungracious  person  who  does  not  acknowl- 
edge, as  Socrates  says,  that  the  gods  have  done  a 
very  great  deal  to  make  human  beings  as  comfort- 
able as  possible.  As  to  what  Mr.  Atkinson  says, 
that  fitness  of  parts  does  not  prove  design,  be- 
cause the  fact  that  two  halves  make  a  whole  may 
not  prove  design  ;  the  answer  is  plain,  that  not 
every  adaptation  or  congruity  proves  design,  but 
only  such  a  combination  of  diverse  means  to  a 
common  end  as  is  absolutely  impossible  to  con- 
ceive without  the  directing  presence  of  that  im- 
perial Unity  which  we  call  Mind.  Break  a  bridge 
in  two,  and  join  the  two  halves  together  again. 
You  say  this  does  not  indicate  design.  But  did 
the  bridge,  as  a  skilful  junction  of  stones,  bars,  or 
boards  to  connect  two  banks  of  a  river,  put  itself 
together  without  design  ?  or  could  even  the  two 
halves  of  a  bridge,  or  of  any  other  body,  have 
fitted  so  exactly  into  a  whole,  if  there  had  not 
been  a  shaping  and  moulding  power  behind  the 
materials,  to  shape  them  into  such  a  whole  ?  Let 
us  not  therefore  say,  there  is  no  tgXq^,  design,  or 
final  cause  in  the  works  of  God,  while  we  admit 


The  Atheisfn  of  Reaction.  241 

that  no  meanest  work  of  man  can  be  without  it  ; 
but  let  the  manifest  truth  rather  be  stated  thus  : 
the  designs  of  man  are  petty,  partial,  and  dealing 
only  with  supplied  materials  ;  the  design  of  God  is 
one,  pervading,  inherent,  self-acting,  unavoidable. 
As  thoughts  are  in  the  mind  of  a  great  poet, 
always  shaping  themselves  out  by  constructive 
reason  and  intuitive  design  into  organic  imagina- 
tive structures  called  poems,  so  the  eternal  ideas  in 
the  Divine  mind  are  always  shaping  themselves 
forth  by  inherent,  necessary,  eternal,  self-evolv- 
ing, self-plastic  Reason  into  those  living  poems  of 
the  creative  intellect  which  we  call  worlds.  With 
God  every  thought  is  a  deed ;  and  thoughts  and 
deeds  together  evolved  in  the  miraculous  chain 
of  vital  continuity  which  we  call  growth  are  the 
essence  of  that  incomprehensible,  reasonable 
Source  of  all  existence  called  GOD,  which  all  pure 
religion  devoutly  worships,  all  sober  philosophy 
piously  acknowledges,  and  no  subtle  argumenta- 
tion can  explain  away. 

No.  8,  21.  There  is  little  here  that  a  reasonable 
theist  would  be  disposed  to  deny.  The  declar- 
ation *'  that  God  is  the  substance  of  Law,  and  the 
origin  of  all  things,"  shows  how  difficult  it  was  for 

Mr.  Atkinson  or  any  sound-minded  man  to  main- 
II 


242    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

tain  consistently  the  unreasonable  negatives  of 
pure  atheism. 

No.  9.  Curiously  and  perversely  enough,  he 
here  corrects  himself  for  having  used  the  term 
God,  and  thinks  it  safer  to  talk  of  a  fundamen- 
tal something  beyond  sense,  and  underlying  all 
change.  One  can  see  nothing  here,  but  an  un- 
reasonable and  superstitious  horror,  against  the 
use  of  a  venerable  name  which  has  been  sanc- 
tioned by  all  the  noblest  religions  and  all  the 
loftiest  philosophies  that  were  assayed  to  give  for- 
mulated utterance  to  the  most  deeply-seated  in- 
stincts of  human  consciousness. 

No.  10.  The  objection  of  modern  devotees  of 
physical  science  to  **  a  personal  God,"  seems  to 
arise  from  their  using  the  term  person  in  the  sense 
of  human  person.  It  is  therefore  identical  with 
the  objection  to  an  anthropomorphic  God,  which 
from  the  days  of  Xenophanes  downwards  has  been 
found  in  the  van  of  all  objections  to  the  popular 
theology  ;  but  modern  objectors  should  bear  in 
mind  that  Christianity  is  not  polytheism  ;  and  that 
the  use  of  anthropomorphic  phrases,  even  by  the 
most  spiritual  Christian  theologians  on  occasions, 
arises  from  a  necessity  of  the  human  imagination, 
and  does  not  in  the   least  imply  that  the  persons 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction.  243 

using  such  phrases  think  of  Jehovah  as  the  Greeks 
did  of  Jove.  Scientific  men  are  sometimes  rather 
prosaic,  and  may  be  excused  if  they  mistake  a 
simile  for  a  proposition  ;  but  philosophers,  or 
persons  propounding  philosophical  propositions, 
should  know  better.  As  to  the  objection  to  the 
term  Creator,  we  have  stated  in  a  previous  chapter 
that  the  production  of  something  out  of  nothing, 
by  a  metaphysical  causation  is  not  taught  formally 
in  any  text  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

No.  12.  The  favouritism  and  predestination  al- 
luded to  here  is  a  vulgar  misunderstanding  of  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  election,  a  doctrine  which,  as 
we  have  already  stated,  was  taught  by  the  ancient 
Stoics,  and  is  founded  on  the  soundest  views  of 
the  general  course  of  Providence.  The  doctrine 
of  philosophical  necessity  is  objectionable  only 
when  it  denies  the  limited  liberty  which  we  plainly 
enjoy,  or  when  it  is  stated,  with  the  atheists,  as  a 
bhnd  necessity  or  chance,  not  a  seeing  necessity 
of  the  living  God. 

No.  13.  The  extraordinary  conception  which 
hes  at  the  root  of  this  passage  is,  that  because 
some  Christians  are  selfish,  therefore  rehgion  is 
essentially  selfish,  and  because  Mr.  Atkinson,  Miss 
Martineau,    and   other    agnostics   are   benevolent 


244   ^'^^  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

persons,  therefore  the  only  way  to  infect  the  world 
with  beneficence  is  to  adopt  the  atheistical  opin- 
ions of  those  persons ! 

No.  14.  This  is  a  fair  average  specimen  of  those 
oblique  and  perverse  views  of  Christian  ethics 
which  are  so  common  in  the  mouths  of  the  agnos- 
tics. That  they  have  received  some  provocation 
from  foolish  advocates  and  inconsistent  professors, 
we  have  all  along  admitted  ;  but,  surely  men  pro- 
fessing to  be  wise  above  their  fellows  should  not 
allow  themselves  to  be  led  away  by  such  hasty 
generalisations,  and  to  see  things  with  such  dis- 
torted optics. 

Nos.  15,  17.  The  word  LAW  is  the  last  term 
with  those  who  disdain  to  use  the  name  of  GOD, 
as  the  symbol  of  the  underlying  reasonable  cause 
of  the  grand  order  of  the  universe.  But  this  word, 
however  fashionable,  is  utterly  void  of  philosophi- 
cal significance.  A  law  is  simply  a  regular  method 
of  operation,  and  implies  either  an  internal  or  an 
external  causal  Force,  whose  constant  and  consist- 
ent action  produces  that  method  of  operation. 
The  motion  of  the  piston  in  a  steam-engine  pro- 
ceeds according  to  a  law  ;  but  no  sane  man  could 
dream  of  substituting  that  expression  of  regu- 
larity in  the  movement  for  the  true  cause  of  the 


The  Atheis7n  of  Reaction,  245 

movement.  The  cause  of  the  law  in  this  case  is 
the  nature  of  steam  +  the  designing  mind  of  James 
Watt.  So  with  everything  else  :  the  men  on  a 
chess-board,  the  balls  on  a  billiard-table,  the 
soldiers  in  an  ordered  battle,  move  according  to  a 
law  ;  but  to  substitute  that  law  for  the  cause  of 
these  motions  is  unmeaning  babble.  The  cause  of 
all  motion  is  a  motive  force  ;  and  the  cause  of  all 
reasonable  motion,  or  motion  according  to  a  law, 
is  a  reasonable  motive  force.  And  in  this  way 
the  cause  of  the  laws  of  Nature,  which  we  are 
called  upon  to  substitute  for  God,  is  the  supreme 
designing  Reason,  or  reasonable  Force,  which  we 
call  God,  plus  the  nature  of  the  materials  which 
Divine  Force  uses  in  working  the  organism  of  the 
universe. 

No.  20.  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
deny  that  atheists  and  agnostics  may  lead  most 
virtuous  and  noble  lives,  and  may  have  their  own 
special  comfort  from  their  own  special  creed.  We 
only  object  to  the  easy  egotism  by  which  all  the 
higher  virtues  are  appropriated  to  the  atheistic 
creed,  and  denied  to  the  theistic. 

No.  24.  Here  we  have  that  phantom  of  *'  a  sin- 
gle conscious  Being,  outside  nature,"  which  seems 
to  have  driven  the  atheistic  mind  of  these  times 


246    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism. 

out  of  its  proprieties.  The  conception  of  a  Jupi- 
ter sitting  outside  of  the  world,  either  on  the  .top- 
most peak  of  Olympus,  is  quite  foreign  both  to 
philosophical  theism  and  to  spiritual  Christianity  ; 
but,  notwithstanding  the  plainest  contradictions  to 
the  contrary,  the  obliquity  of  these  people  will 
rush  off  at  the  mere  sound  of  an  innocent  imagin- 
ative expression,  right  away  into  the  black  nega- 
tions of  Law  and  Necessity,  and  atheism,  or  at 
least  what  they  call  an  impersonal  God.  When 
theists  call  God  a  person,  they  certainly  do  not  do 
so  because  they  conceive  him  as  a  separate  unit, 
bounded  by  the  narrow  limits  of  human  personal- 
ity, but  because  they  deem  it  most  suitable  to 
describe  the  supreme  cause  of  all  nature  by  that 
which  is  most  noble  in  nature.  We  know  nothing 
higher  in  the  visible  world  than  personality  ;  and 
nothing  higher  in  the  invisible  than  God.  If  by 
an  impersonal  God  is  meant,  only  a  God  freed 
from  all  limits  of  merely  human  personality,  there 
is  no  great  harm  in  it ;  but  the  phrase  is  extremely 
vague ;  and  may  mean  something,  or  anything,  or 
nothing  at  all.  We  shall  therefore,  wisely,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  It  may  fill  up  the  yawning 
vacuities  of  atheism,  with  some  decency  ;  other- 
wise worthless. 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  247 

I  have  given  this  full  consideration  to  the  reli- 
gious and  theological  opinions  of  Mr.  Atkinson,  not 
because  I  attribute,  or  have  the  slightest  reason  to 
attribute,  any  peculiar  authority  to  his  utterances, 
but  because  his  words  represent  fairly  enough  that 
oblique  vision,  and  distorted  portraiture  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  morals,  which,  seasoned  up  with 
the  favourite  scientific  phraseology  of  the  hour,  is 
cooked  up  into  so  many  shallow  shapes  of  more  or 
less  distinctly  enunciated  atheism.  Of  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  specially,  we  have  said  nothing.  Unques- 
tionably she  was  a  lady,  not  only  of  rare  intellec- 
tual gifts,  but  with  a  moral  nature  of  the  most 
delicate  sensibility ;  theologically,  however,  she 
was  content  to  put  herself  before  the  world  as  the 
mere  reflective  mirror  of  Mr.  Atkinson,  and  must 
stand  or  fall  with  him.  We  now  turn  to  Professor 
Tyndall,  a  scientific  expositor  of  much  higher  pre- 
tensions, and  one  from  whose  well-weighed  words, 
placed  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast  in 
the  year  1874,  we  may  expect  to  gather  with  more 
precision  the  real  sentiments  of  the  materiahsts 
and  agnostics  of  the  present  day.  I  have  read  his 
celebrated  address  over  several  times,  with  great 
care  ;  and  I  have  now  little  doubt  as  to  its  real 
significance  and   drift.     It  certainly  does  not  an- 


248   The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

nounce  an  intellectual  philosophy  of  nature  ;  the 
prominence  which  it  gives  to  the  doctrine  of  atoms, 
and  the  favour  shown  to  Democritus,  Epicurus, 
and  Lucretius,  as  compared  with  Plato,  Aristotle, 
and  Zeno,  gives  a  decidedly  atheistical  or  material- 
istic hue  to  the  introductory  paragraphs  ;  but  on 
the  whole,  the  concluding  sections  and  the  general 
tone  of  the  remarks  in  the  body  of  the  address 
incline  me  to  conclude  that  the  lecturer  is  a  Pan- 
theist, and  who  would  have  no  objections  to 
worship  the  God  of  Spinoza,  Giordano  Bruno,  or 
Goethe,  if  he  felt  any  movement  in  his  soul  to- 
wards worship  at  all.  The  concluding  lines,  in- 
deed, from  Wordsworth,  which  the  learned  gentle- 
man has  italicised,  are  distinctly  Pantheistic, 

"Amotion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things" — 

and  one  can  hardly  conceive  a  writer,  sympathizing 
with  Wordsworth  at  all,  and  at  the  same  time 
dealing  in  the  blank  vacuities  and  barreil  negations 
of  pure  atheism.  I  have  already  explained  that 
pantheism,  so  long  as  it  asserts  the  unity  of  motion 
and  spirit  and  mind  in  a  reasonably-ordered  uni- 
verse, is  a  perfectly  legitimate  form  of  theism,  to 
which  not  even  orthodox  Christianity,  rightly  un- 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  249 

derstood,  need  have  any  serious  objection.  But 
there  is  a  mist  and  a  confusion  and  a  slippery- 
ambiguity  about  Professor  Tyndall's  phraseology 
which  prevents  the  impartial  reader  from  extract- 
ing all  that  joy  from  the  final  Wordsworthian 
quotation  that  it  might  otherwise  naturally  create. 
The  very  fact  of  placing  Democritus,  Epicurus, 
and  Lucretius  formally  above  Plato  and  Aristotle 
shows  a  want  of  something  in  the  writer's  philoso- 
phy which  no  quotations  borrowed  from  writers 
of  a  more  lofty  school  can  supply.  To  reconcile 
Democritus  and  Wordsworth  as  we  know  them  is 
impossible.  I  say  as  we  know  them,  because  we 
know  Democritus  only  from  fragments  ;  and  it  may 
have  been  the  case  that  the  great  father  of  the 
atomic  doctrine,  like  Thales  and  the  other  wise 
pre-Socratic  sages,  had  a  A6fyo<;,  or  Reason,  in  the 
background,  by  the  help  of  which  his  atoms  might 
shape  themselves  into  a  reasonable  universe.  But 
as  things  now  stand  neither  Epicurus,  the  exposit- 
or of  Democritus,  nor  Lucretius,  nor  the  modern 
scientific  lecturer,  makes  any  use  of  ^46709,  or  N0O9, 
or  any  intellectual  potency  in  their  construction  of 
the  universe.  It  constructs  itself  by  evolution, 
natural  selection,  laws,  and  a  few  other  fashionable 
phrases,    which,    divorced    from    a    self-existent. 


250    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

plastic  ^0709,  or  Reason,  as  we  have  already  ex- 
plained, to  a  thinking  mind,  have  simply  no 
significance  at  all.  Of  one  thing  Professor  Tyndall 
seems  wisely  aware  :  if  this  sort  of  materialistic 
and  agnostic  talk  is  to  go  on,  we  must  change  our 
definition  of  the  word  MATTER  ;  and,  no  doubt,  if 
it  is  made  to  include  motion,  and  not  only  blind 
motion,  but  reasoned  motion,  and  motion  accord- 
ing to  a  law,  we  may  then  say  that  Matter  so 
gifted  contains  **  the  promise  and  potency  of  all 
terrestrial  life."  But,  as  we  said  with  reference  to 
Mr.  Atkinson,  why  confound  all  reasonable  discus- 
sion by  using  words  in  an  entirely  novel  and  self- 
contradictory  sense  ?  If  matter  includes  motion, 
then  matter  +  motion  +  form,  the  result  of  motion 
in  a  reasonable  world,  =  GoD  ;  and  why  not  deny 
matter  altogether,  instead  of  elevating  it  into  a 
position  which  it  cannot  consistently  maintain? 
But  letting  this  pass,  we  observe  further  that 
Professor  Tyndall,  no  less  than  Mr.  Atkinson,  is 
pursued  by  the  phantom  of  an  external,  mechani- 
cal, detached,  and  interfering  God,  of  whose 
existence  no  sane  Christian  theist  ever  dreamed. 
Another  man  of  straw  against  which  he  seems  to 
be  fighting  is  "  a  series  of  creative  acts,"  as  if  it 
were  at  all   necessary  for  any  theist  to  believe  in 


The  Atheism  of  Reactio7t,  251 

the  existence  of  any  such  acts.  Inasmuch  as  God 
is  everywhere  present,  he  must  be  everywhere 
and  always  energizing  according  to  the  necessity 
of  his  own  eternal  reason  ;  and  there  is  not,  nor 
can  there  be  conceived,  any  such  thing  as  a  want 
of  continuity  in  the  indwelling  plastic  energy  by 
which  he  is  constantly  shaping  forth  the  life  of  the 
universe.  And  Evolution,  of  which  the  learned 
lecturer  also  makes  large  discourse,  is  a  doctrine 
to  which  no  Christian  theologian  can  have  the 
shghtest  objection  ;  unless,  indeed,  there  be  some 
divines  who,  taking  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  in 
its  literal  signification — which  only  a  prosaic  person 
of  the  lowest  order  would  do — imagine  that  God 
created  the  world  by  six  verbal  fiats,  like  the 
strokes  of  a  harlequin,  one  in  each  of  six  days,  and 
then  retired  from  the  scene,  with  nothing  to  do, 
as  I  have  heard  it  sometimes  expressed  in  the  pul- 
pit, but  to  "■  contemplate  his  own  Infinite  perfec- 
tions !  "  Having  dispensed  as  much  as  possible 
with  the  idea  of  a  plastic  MiND  in  the  universe, 
and  having  assigned  the  natural  functions  of  such 
plastic  Mind  to  a  newly  baptized  Matter,  we  are 
not  to  be  surprised  if  Professor  Tyndall  goes  on  to 
magnify  the  famous  shibboleth  of  the  ingenious 
physical  speculator.   Dr.   Darwin,   and  to   employ 


252    The  Natural  History  of  Atheism, 

''natural  selection"  to  do  the  work  which  devout 
thinkers  like  Copernicus  and  Kepler  have  agreed 
with  Moses,  King  David,  and  other  prophets  and 
wise  men,  in  ascribing  to  God.  The  beauty  of 
flowers,  he  tells  us,  is  due  to  natural  selection. 
Will  he  be  so  good  as  tell  us  whether,  when  a  se- 
lection is  made,  it  must  not  be  made  on  some 
principle,  which  both  renders  the  act  of  selection 
possible,  and  causes  it  to  be  made  in  a  particular 
way  ?  If  the  selection  is  made  in  the  fashion  that 
the  stronger  overwhelms  and  absorbs  the  weaker, 
in  this  case  it  is  plain  that  there  must  be  a  princi- 
ple of  strength  in  nature  which  forces  its  way  over 
weakness.  To  this  doctrine  no  man  of  sense  can 
object.  But  in  the  same  way,  if  the  selection  takes 
place  in  the  fashion  that  beauty  prevails  over  ugli- 
ness, it  can  only  be  because  there  is  a  principle  of 
beauty  in  nature  that  rejoices  in  its  own  propaga- 
tion. Well,  then,  unquestionably  there  is  such  a 
principle  in  nature,  otherwise  how  could  the  world 
everywhere  be  blooming  and  bursting  with  beauty, 
or  at  least  tending  towards  beauty  in  some  shape 
or  other  ?  But  what  is  this  principle  ?  Professor 
Tyndall,  unless  he  gives  up  Democritus  and  Epi- 
curus, cannot  answer  this.  Plato  can.  Beauty  is 
the  ^6709,  IVoi)9,  or  Mind,  of  the  cosmos,  manifest- 


The  Atheism  of  Reaction,  253 

ing  itself  in  the  delicately-shaped  congruities  of 
visual  form.  Hence  the  beauty  of  ferns  and  other 
leafy  tracery.  GOD  IN  ALL  AND  THROUGH 
ALL  AND  FOR  ALL,  is  the  only  formula  that 
can  explain  these  things. ,  Without  God,  evolu- 
tion, continuity  of  nature,  natural  selection,  con- 
servation of  energy,  or  whatever  other  phrases 
happen  to  have  currency  for  the  hour,  are  mere 
sound  and  smoke,  and  imaginations  of  science 
falsely  so  called. 


THE  END. 


A  BOOK  WORTH  READING, 


BLACKIE'S 
FOUR  PHASES  OF  MORALS: 

SOCRATES,   ARISTOTLE,    CHRISTIANITY,   AND 
UTILITARIANISM. 

BY 

JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE,  F.  R.  S.  E. 

PROFESSOR   OF  GREEK    IN   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   EDINBURGH. 

One  volume,  i2mo,  $1.50. 
— »— 
Selecting  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Christianity,  and  Utilitarianism  as  the 
four  great  types,  Prof.  Blackie  shows  how  the  theories  of  the  ancient  schoola 
intersect  the  activities  of  every-day  life,  and  where  they  fall  short  of  meeting 
the  demands  and  necessities  of  the  human  soul.  The  volume  is  remarkably 
clear  and  incisive  in  style,  and  vigorous  and  stimulating  in  thought. 


CRITICAL    NOTICES. 

From  the  Boston  Daily  A  dvertiser. 
The  Professor  succeeds  in  bringing  out  with  great  perspicacity  the  salient 
and  distinguishing  features  of  the  four  most  remarkable  phases  or  schools  of 
moral  science  which  have  had  and  still  have  influence  in  determining  the 
speculative  opinions  and  practical  conduct  of  the  present  civilized  peoples. 
The  style  of  these  lectures  is  for  the  most  part  plain  and  always  directed  to 
tJie  thought. 

From  tfie  Boston  Watchynan  and  Reflector. 

We  regard  this  book  of  Prof.  Blackie' s  as  containing  by  far  the  ablest  vin- 
dication of  the  divinity  of  Christianity  which  the  year  has  produced.  In  the 
wide  sweep  of  its  thought  it  takes  in  all  those  principles  which  underlie  the 
various  forms  not  only  of  ancient  error  but  of  modern  unbelief.  The  spirit 
of  finest  scholarship,  of  broadest  charity,  and  of  a  reverent  faith,  pervades 
the  entire  book. 

From^  the  New  York  Christian  A  dvocate. 

The  author  is  eminently  orthodox,  both  philosophically  and  theologically. 
....  It  is  a  thoughtful  work,  and  must  prove  highly  suggestive  of  thought 
to  all  who  may  read  it  appreciatively. 

From  tlie  New  York  Examiner  and  Chronicle. 
His  stvle  is  very  readable,  often  beautiful,  —  at  once  adorning  and  illus- 
trating his  themes  by  varied  allusions  to  the  best  ancient  and  modern  lit- 
erature. 

From  the  New  York  Evangelist. 
The  volume  shows  a  large  acquaintance  with  the  subject,  and  is  uniform! 
»lear  and  often  eloquent. 

Stnt  post-paid  upon  receipt  of  price  hy 

SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG,  &   CO. 

743  &  745  Broadway,  New  York 


A  Vade  Mecum  for  Young  Men  and  Students. 
ON  SELF-CULTURE; 

INTELLECTUAL,    PHYSICAL,    AND    MORAL. 
By  JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE, 

PROFESSOR  OF  GREEK  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  EDINBURGH,  AND  AUTHOR  0» 
"  FOUR  PHASES  OF  MORALS,"  ETC. 

One  volume^  i6mo,  cloth,  $i.oo. 
CRITICAL  NOTICES. 

Frotn  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

We  cannot  here  particularize  Professor  Blackie's  precepts.  Everywhere 
he  teaches  the  desirableness  of  healthful  action,  of  a  buoyant  outlooking 
energy.     He  is  always  fresh,  never  flippant,  never  dull.     There  is  not  a 

page  which  would  not  repay  quotation The   reader  himself 

must  go  to  this  little  volume.  It  is  full  of  excellent  sense  and  fine  sugges- 
tion. The  style  is  forcible,  simple,  and  elegant;  the  thought  clear  and 
scholarly ;  of  the  high  moral  quality  of  the  book  we  have  said  enough. 

From  the  Boston  Transcript. 
Prof.  Blackie's  little  book  is  so  full  of  strong  Scotch  common-sense  and 
of  judicious  counsel  in  regard  to  the  aims,  studies,  and  habits  of  young 
men,  that  it  ought  to  find  its  way  to  the  library,  and  to  the  head  and  heart 
of  every  young  man  —  and  young  woman  too  —  in  all  English-speaking 
countries. 

From  the  Congregatioualist. 

To  speak  moderately,  Self-Culture  is  positively  admirable. 

From  the  New  York  World. 
As  a  whole,  the  book  is  a  plain  and  forcible  statement  of  rather  obvious 
truths,  and  it  will  doubtless  prove  of  more  practical  service  than  the  reader 
who  does  not  himself  stand  in  need  of  its  aid  will  be  at  first  sight  disposed 
to  think. 

From,  the  Churchman. 
The  volume  is  one  wnich  every  young  man  ought  to  read.     It  sets  forth 
in  a  wav  which  no  recent  writer  has  equalled,  the  relations  between  intel- 
lectual,  physical,  and  moral  culture,  and  will  truly  serve  as  a  most  valuable 
vade  mecu7n. 

From  the  Watchman  and  Reflector. 

This  last  volume  from  Prof.  Blackie's  pen,  bears  the  marks  of  the  same 
fertile  thought,  finished  scholarship,  large,  earnest  spirit,  and  strong,  vigoi^ 
ous  literary  style.  The  book  was  written  especially  for  young  men,  and 
every  line  is  like  a  bugle  call  to  all  that  is  truly  manly  in  the  young  nature. 

Fro7n  the  Christian  Intelligencer. 

Full  of  sensible  counsel  and  wise  suggestions  for  young  men,  especially 
whose  preparing  for  or  entering  upon  literary  or  professional  pursuits,  on 
Jie  subjects  of  the  culture  of  the  intellect,  physical  culture,  and  moral  cuL 
.ure.  The  wisdom  of  Prof.  Blackie's  counsels  consists  in  their  commou 
lense  and  practicalness,  and  also  in  their  condensed  brevity. 

Will  be  sent  post-paid  on  receipt  of  the  price  by  the  publishers, 

SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG,  &  CO., 

743  &  745  Broadway,  New  York 


